Ducks love water

Are you afraid to wash your feather pillows and bedding? Well, fear no more, feathers were made for sudsing! Just think about those cuddly "fowl" creatures paddling about ponds and lakes, preening their beautiful plumage to make them buoyant. Feathers and down benefit greatly from occasional laundering, provided they are completely dried after their baths. Be sure to use a front~loading machine on the gentlest cycle. This is a big part of spring cleaning at the Greenhouse. You might want to throw a couple of clean tennis balls into the dryer with your pillows to fluff them up and prevent wet feathers from clumping together (nobody wants to snuggle up to moldy geese), although my Organic Housekeeping guru Ellen Sandbeck says, "There is conflicting information about drying down~filled items. Some sources suggest that putting clean tennis balls or canvas tennis shoes in the dryer helps fluff up the down; others say that the pounding of the tennis balls or tennies damages the down and reduces its useful life. I prefer to err on the side of caution and keep the tennis equipment out of the dryer."

If you're still unsure about dunking your stuff, at least plump up and air out your comforters and pillows regularly in the sun and breezes.

Feather bedding has a distinctive fragrance that everyone in my family just relishes! And natural materials are much kinder than synthetics to those who suffer from allergies. I'll take a snoot~full of goose over formaldehyde any day!