+ OK. Here is a question. What happens to old hotel linen? I have been thinking about this a lot lately. Maybe I have spent a little too much time in hotels. When their sheets get too old or their towels loose their fluffiness and those blankets get pilled. Where does all that stuff go? All I can find is that they throw them in a dumpster. Then they pay to have them hauled away to the dump. Surely we can do better than that! Does anyone know anyone in the hotel industry we can ask and get a real answer. I am getting no joy so far. Surely they do not just throw them out!
Couldn’t we collect them and fold them up and give them to the homeless or the food pantrys or someone who can use them for rags. Or something? I would use old towels. All farms need towels. Can we think on this? I hate waste. Don’t you hate waste? Plus, and this is somewhat of a secret, I love rags. Any rags. Well washed faded fabrics. I love to fold them and stuff them in my drawers. I love milking rags and dishcloth rags and floor cloths. Many of my clothes could be called rags, but I love them.
I want to save the hotel towels and sheets and give them a second use. And I KNOW we can find a use for them. Dogs? Abandoned dog sheets? People need sheets too! There must be an answer.
I will call the campaign – Save the Rags. (Actually I think that may need some work. But you know where I am heading). Ideas?
Beatrix (Beatrix is such a big name – I think I will call her Beatrix Potter – it is gentler somehow) Beatrix Potter was out in the field yesterday morning with her bad tempered mother (not all mothers are nice you know). We had some rain and winds then it cleared for a while into a lovely wistful day and all the animals moved slowly out into the light. Whenever I could get my hands close to the calf, I patted her nose and gave her big strokes and chats. Though Elsie was onto me, she was a bit calmer yesterday.
Beatrix Potter gamboled about, drinking on and off, touching noses with Aunty Del – then led her mother by her nose back to the barn. Elsie may be tough as nails with me but with that baby she is all marshmallow.
I locked them both into the barn last night. For the meantime I would rather they stuck close to home at night.
Did you see the pussy willow in the header – we have a daffodil too.
Beatrix Potter. (I think I will call her Potter for short, see how these things evolve – though you have to say it with a New Zealand accent Potta’ ) – Potter slept all afternoon in a bed of straw by the barn. A sunny spot out of the wind is the perfect place for a baby animal. If I make a dry slightly elevated bed for an animal they always go and lie in it. Always. A soft dry bed in the sun is one of the most important requirements of an animal. We all seek sunshine. This is why I worry for children (and adults) who seldom get outside. It is against nature to live in artificial light in hard rigid chairs all the time. A little sun brightens our spirits, allows our rhythm to settle, empowers intelligence – gives us life- literally.
Now, of course you and I are hoping that Lady Astor will calve soon so I can try to graft her calf onto Elsie. I am not sure if Elsie the Wild will take another calf. But it is like being a sculptor. I have never studied sculpting so how do I know that I am not brilliant at it. I think this about tennis too. I have never actually tried to play tennis but I do sometimes wonder whether I may have been amazing if I had. In fact I think I might be a REALLY amazing tennis player. Deep down. On the Inside. Care for a match? So we will give Elsie the benefit of the doubt. She may well be a wonderful nurse cow. Though it will involve some very, very careful work.
Just like: we may be able to save all those hotel towels from oblivion.
And now for the bestest rubbish shot with hilarious content.
Do you remember Sesame Street? “One of these things is not like the other!”
From a different angle. Yes, it is one of Marmalade’s kittens sleeping with the goats. If you lay down with goats you will wake up with – well – Goats.
Good morning- Another interesting Marmalade baby fact – though I have not got it on film yet – Her boy kitten. (we call him The Boy Kitten – ok that is deep),he sleeps nights in the Hut with Tima and Tane: the kunekune pigs. And hangs out with them in the fields during the day. He has even been seen sitting on top of Tane in the sun. Tane standing very still as The Boy Kitten sits up on his wide haunches kneading Tane’s back with his feet. I will stalk them for that shot for you.
In the meantime – Have a lovely day
Your friend on the farm
celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
84 responses to “Hotel Towels for Farms”
Rags, I have a hidden stash, safe from my husband, the rag thief. I use old bedding, sheets and such for birthings; they work perfectly for that. Oh, and for covering gardens from frost, and for painting outdoor furniture, (so that I don’t paint my grass).
Beatrix Potta’ how lovely. One of my favorites you know. I have a chook named Vita (as in Vita Sacksville West), painters of gardens in words and in deed. Love.
If you would like to donate to the two people shelters in Kankakee, I can show you where they are. There is a food pantry in town as well.
I have the same love affair with rags….. and bags…. good sturdy bags come in very handy. My husband cleans out my stash whenever he can. And when he does, and we need a bag or rag -> I look at him and say “Told you so” no go get your favorite tee-shirt and use it as a rag!!!!! Since I have none!
I’m tough like that…. Or I like to think I am….. I’m really just a pushover and wimpy. 😉
Love the name Beatrix Potter!
I will be astonished if it turns out that hotel towels are simply sent to landfills. There is (to be business-minded about it) actual cash value in fabrics that can be recycled, repurposed, sold on to other countries, etc., and there are organizations (like the Salvation Army in the US, I think) that use such methods to extract some income from even garments and fabrics that are no longer in good enough condition to be used for their original purpose. The “rag trade” lives.
The rag trade.. Oh yes, i hope so
Save the Rags! I love it. Okay. It harkens back to other, er, female issues. All the better to coin the phrase. I tend to keep my towels. They become dust rags and used for washing cars. You have me thinking now of how else they might be used -and who could use them. 🙂
I still have sheets towels and tablecloths that came from my late mother in law. She was married in nineteen hundred and eighteen. Yes, I did mean 1918, when her childhood sweetheart returned from the WW1.. The sheets are far better quality than we would get today, They take forever to dry and need ironing, Serious ironing. I use them as dust sheets to cover furniture and the floor when painting and on occasion to soak up spillage. Old towels have many uses and move down the scale until they are indeed rags. I did find something when I was clearing a wardrobe and immediately you came to mind. A pair of ski trousers, UK size 12. Any good to you? Let me know and I will mail them to you. I’ll email you a photo. Loved the photos today and wondered how Boo felt with the kittens playing & sleeping with the pigs and kids?
I think it is a great idea to get hold of hotel sheets and towels and do something with them. I hate waste. We take our old towels and blankets to the RSPCA in Australia.
We put discarded linens in the storage building and use for rags, covering things, and collecting ripened fruit. I love putting old sheets under the fruit trees, then give the branches a little shake and fruit is easily cinched up in the sheet. There are all sorts of uses for cloth as rags.. we don’t waste a thing here. I also pick up old tea towels when I can find them. They’re soft and wonderful to use for baby wildlife while we’re raising orphans!
The very posh Versace Hotel on the Gold Coast donates all their “used” linens to our Women’s Service. I say “used” advisedly, as they don’t look used at all, I think they’re changed every quarter. We have transition houses attached to the refuge, where women are supported before heading out on their own and it’s to these women who’ll be setting up house again we give the linens to. As well as towels and sheets there are beautiful thick luxurious towelling bath robes, the looks on the women’s faces when they’re each given one of these is priceless….a wonderful gift for women who have left everything behind. Myself and another member of the committee just went door-knocking asking for things and now have quite a few hotels hand on their used goods to us.
I love old linens to use as rags or use the good parts to repurpose into quilts or the backing for quilts, or cut into strips for rag rugs and baskets…..and so many uses for old soft towels….dog towels, wrapping sick chickens in, underneath incontinent old kitties. Nothing needs to be thrown away until it’s threadbare and then it can go in the compost.
Well, that is just fantastic, I am thrilled to bits to read this! What fantastic work you are doing.. and bless those hotels for giving.. c
Nothing like a good goat pile!
a couple of places i have worked at would buy used, washed, sanitized, towels and cut up pieces of bedsheets, even t shirt material scraps, by the pound for shop rags. they would be compressed in cardboard boxes, weighing 5 pounds or so
My cat growing up hung out with the pigs and sheep and one ewe actually let her sleep and cuddle in on her rear flank – weird sight to see at first and then it just becomes the norm. I had one pig by the name of Lulu that loved to played ball with a big rubber ball and she would come if I called her. Animals could teach the human beings a thing or two about acceptance among different species 🙂 Happy Day!
I had a specialty painting business for years and we used to buy rags by the pound. We specified cotton knit ‘t shirt’ rags but they had all kinds.
There’s also a collection box for the local Linus Project at the five and dime/hardware store. They make blankets and lap robes for people in need. The local women’s league at the Catholic church does the same.
I’m stalking a photo of Her Majesty Fanny curled up tight against portly Percy’s belly. So far no luck, she’s much to alert to sneak up on. When it’s cold Percy buries himself in his bedding and she lays on top of it.
They are such a pair. I find it hard to sneak up on the pigs.. but goats are impossible.. c
Love Beatrix Potter: she was a conservationist as well as a brilliant author you know!! But will Potter be followed by Jemima Puddleduck and Mrs Piggy-Winkle avec Company on the farmy name lists! 🙂 ? A new avenue to explore!! Haven’t thought of ‘old’ hotel linen but surely in this day and age some use in the way of sales or donations is found . . . well quite a few in the Lounge personally know of such . . . and, oh yes, the last photo of the kitties and goats comfortable co-habitation will now welcome me to my computer each morning: looks fab!! Hope your hand better . . .
My mother cleaned out some boxes from storage the other day which had all our old baby clothes in them. The clothes went to my sister’s kids but the old cloth nappies I grabbed – excellent as rags, they are super absorbant and will clean up anything!
I loved those old cloth nappies. After my children grew out of them they were rags for YEARS! I had forgotton all about them – thank you Miss Kitty!