Summertime

Charleston piazza, Charleston, SC   

Beach towels hanging over porches say summertime to me. The colleges might be on break but that is a good number of bicycles. It looks like some good times happen here. 

Lift the Lowcountry

Charleston, SC 

Isn't that a beautiful porch? I love the brick flooring.

Today is Lowcountry Giving Day supporting area non-profits and encouraging you to support causes you believe in. At this time, 8:30ish pm 12,542 gifts totaling $3,781,564.92 has been raised for local charities and non-profits. I hope it will make a difference. I made donations to Water Missions International for the Nepal earthquake and to Barrier Island Free Medical Clinic. #liftthelowcountry

About Lowcountry Giving Day: Lowcountry Giving Day is our local 24-hour online giving challenge. This challenge is designed to encourage our friends and neighbors to support their favorite causes and organizations right here in the Lowcountry.
To celebrate the centennial of community foundations nationwide and Coastal Community Foundation’s 40th anniversary, we participated in a national effort, Give Local America, on May 6, 2014, to kickstart our first Lowcountry Giving Day, raising more than $4 million from thousands of donors for dozens of nonprofits.

Fancy Pants Posts & Alternative Spindles

Queen St., Charleston, S.C.

There are at least three houses with this style of pillars and posts instead of turned spindles that I am aware of. These are two of them. I believe the other is on Charlotte St. and tucked away in an earlier album. It is an expensive project replacing hand turned wooden spindles in an old house but this is a pretty neat style.

Sadly, whenever you have an old house in your past you look at this and think, "pretty, but I wouldn't want to paint it." Heheh.

Solar Clothes Dryer

Porch scene, Charleston, S.C.

Charleston clothes dryer. I like the look of clothes drying on a porch rail. In Charleston it is usually towels and bathing suits so it looks like the results of a long, fun day at the beach but in this case it looks more practical. I often say that the dishwasher is my favorite appliance but that is because it's been a very long time since I lived without a washing machine and clothes dryer.

Does anyone else remember the smell of sheets dried in the sun shine? I would always take a bath and wash my hair that night so everything smelled deliciously fresh and clean when I got between those sheets.

When I was a kid in north-east India the word for Saturday meant "wash clothes day" and we would often hike down to the river with dirty clothes bundled and tied to our backs. We'd spend the morning soaping them up in the fresh creek water and then spread them on the bushes to dry. We'd take our own bath and rinse our hair in the waterfalls and then building a fire to make tea and have a lazy afternoon picnic before packing it all back up again to carry home.

It sounds completely unreasonable now but were awfully good times since all of our friends were doing exactly the same thing. The water was cold and the sun was warm. I'd hop from boulder to boulder picking a favorite to lay in the sunshine. Not a bad way to spend a Saturday at all.

For now though, it's nice to be able to spin and click to dry my clothes, thank you.