Chatting On the Front Porch: The Busy Season

Have a seat here on the porch with me.  The front porch is always the shadiest this time of day and the perfect place to sit.   Truth told, there's a nicer breeze on the back porch but there's also sun at this hour and the breeze doesn't quite balance the heat.

I've made a jug of Peach Iced Tea.  The birds will serenade us, and the cat will keep us company and more than likely the dogs will join us because they love a nice visit, too.  And what could be nicer?  Once they greet you, they will settle at our feet and be content to let us chat away undisturbed.

Notice how Rufus is limping?  He's putting weight on his paw now, but the foolish little thing got himself hurt chasing the propane company's truck.   The poor boy driving the truck was in tears.  Rufus was just fine really.  He got 'nipped' so to speak and we're sorry as can be about it, but he insists on chasing trucks and there is a danger in it.  I'm only hoping he's learned his lesson.  

We were sympathetic to him and John, who claims he doesn't like Rufus, went over him thoroughly to be sure nothing was broken.  Then he checked on him every half hour for three or four hours and then Rufus was gone.  I suggested to John he'd probably gone to visit Bess to look for additional sympathy, which he had done indeed.  Bess and I sort of share Rufus between us, and Sam and John tolerate him only because we love him so.  

However, his bid for sympathy over at the other house was greeted with moderation as Bess, just like us, has told Rufus time and again that he must stop acting silly when trucks come into the yard.   River, his companion on most neighborhood runs, was also not too sympathetic as she's recovering from a minor injury of her own.  He limped right back home.  He'd had a long walk on his sore foot for pretty much nothing, poor old thing.

No worries though. I watched him come up the driveway on Saturday morning obviously having been off on one of his neighborhood visitations.  Bess and I suspicion he has another house, or two, where he is also 'at home'.   As I told a friend of mine recently, loving Rufus is a bit like loving a rogue.  You know full well you're not his one and only, but you don't care because you just like him so much!  Well, the point was, he came home up the driveway and barely limped.  Then later on the back porch the little faker held up his paw as though he was in pain...Trouble was he held up the wrong paw!  Now he's walking without any noticeable limp at all, until he realizes one of us is outdoors, lol.  

John and I fussed at him afresh today for chasing the Fed Ex driver.  I almost had him to the porch and Maddie was the instigator in this chase.  She took off running and barking and he was just not capable of watching her do something that he himself wanted to do, not even if it meant a biscuit was in my hand.  Sigh.  So much of thinking he'd learn!

These past two or three weeks have been fairly busy.  I know just about everyone says the same thing and it's true.  This is the busy season, as we get our yards and porches back in shape after a winter of avoiding both.  I am behind, in honesty, but I'm gaining a foothold on my work.   Our busy the week before was hard work, but this last week it was running around taking care of odd errands, picking up a 'sick' child, and babysitting, plus small group, men's meeting, senior supper, and appointments of various sorts. Fortunately, that should all end here in the next day or so.  School is out for the school age children; allergy season should be at an end until fall and I think we're pretty much caught up on the appointments for at least another month.

The work lists are long, and my time is limited but every day I try to do something.   I used to watch a vlogger who was making over her farmhouse, and she often spoke of "doing 30 minutes of house", where she and her husband each put in a good solid half hour of reno jobs after work each day so that they had done something on the never-ending list of to-dos.   She felt that 1 hour total of work each day often made the difference between making major progress on their weekends because all of the ticky little jobs had already been taken care of.   

That's how I'm approaching my work here at home.  I don't always have time to get out in the yard and do a big job, but every day I'm telling myself, "Do 30 minutes of yard" and out I go.  It's surprising how much you can get accomplished if you just put in 30 minutes, focusing on one area.

I've been walking about my yard looking at things. I'm thrilled that this year, the lavender has buds!  Katie gave me the seeds of what I think was Mumford lavender and I kept them for two years before I planted any.  I planted some one year and the next year I had a single plant come up. I thought that was pretty good but the next year two more popped up.   They are all now about 3-4 years old and this year they all put out buds.  

The Amaryllis have been lovely, really lovely.  I have three bulbs planted in the front of the corner flower bed.  They bloomed and then sent up a second stem and bloomed all over again.  The first gardenia buds have bloomed.  I have Asiatic lilies about to bloom, hydrangea is heading up for blooming and the orange ditch lilies that I love have started to bloom.  I realized that with the roses and Iris I get a pretty good show of flowers through Spring, but I have very little that returns each Summer.  I'm going to try and remedy that this year.

I once noted that Granny often had something blooming in her yard about 10 months of the year.  It was only about Christmas, after the first frosts that she had little or nothing in bloom.  At Christmas time she'd bring in pine, cedar and mistletoe for the holidays.   And then each February she began to have blooms again of some sort from bulbs or early blooming shrubs or twigs she'd pruned from trees.  That is my goal:  have something in bloom about ten months of the year.

The other day I bought a hanging basket of Coleus.  Coleus does bloom but more importantly the leaves are the standout feature.  They come in many varieties with different shaped leaves, different leaf colors and such.  I saw a gorgeous deep copper and a garnet red at a garden center the other day.  Alas that basket of coleus was $50 which is rich for my blood. I bought a basket that sold for about $14 and had three varieties, though not copper or red leafed ones.  There's a deep purple and lime green variety that I'd also dearly love to acquire.  The loveliest thing about Coleus is that it's drought tolerant and deer resistant and easily propagated.  

I also purchased a new bougainvillea.  I'm trying to determine where it might be happiest since it requires full sun.  It's a young plant, younger than the last one I had that didn't winter over this year.  I think Bougainvillea are just lovely.  John and I have watched a vlogger called Relaxed Walker who mostly walks about Israel in various cities and the Bougainvillea there are tremendous and splendid in all colors.  I don't believe I live in a climate that will ever allow my own to get that glorious, but Mama had one that did very well on the southern side of her house.  I don't have a Southern view and I very much want to be able to see the thing so finding the best place for it has been a bit iffy.   Right now, I've settled for putting it at the end of the back porch facing west where it will get sun most all afternoon and evening.

My plan for this week is to work on the porch, specifically the front porch.  But I started work last week when I had an unexpected free day and got both porches more or less whipped into shape.  I plan to tackle the back porch and the patio as well but not just yet.  It's the front porch that I want to focus upon first.   

I'd like to have pots and pots of flowering plants on both the porches, but truth told, there's no room for more on the front porch!  I already have the ironing board loaded up with plants.  Trouble is they are winter blooming plants that benefit from being outdoors this time of year and where else might I put them?  I could use the tables but then where would we set our tea glasses?  I remind myself that I want function as well as pretty on the porches and that means I have to figure out a way to do plants without eating up tabletop space.  

I have a spot to place two hanging baskets and I think I'm going to have to figure out a plant stand or something that I can use.  And I think if I also put two really big pots either side of the front steps, I could add a few more pretty things.  

I plan to get busy cleaning, painting, and freshening up now that both porches are arranged to suit me.  This year I've decided the furnishings will all be painted black.  I'm using an oil-based paint this year that I'll apply with a brush, not spray paint as I have in the past. I'm hoping this will mean that the finish lasts longer than any has thus far.  

As I said, at present, it's only the arrangement of furniture I've done.  As I told John, once I know how things fit best, I can better tackle the harder work of cleaning and painting and prettying.  Oh, my goodness the ideas brewing in my brain!  It's about this time, as I contemplate breaking these jobs down into bite sized pieces, I wish I personally lived in the television makeover show world where we see the before and thirty minutes later, we see the after.   And wish as heartily for their budgets to work with!

Never mind.  I rather like the process of doing these sorts of jobs because there is a lot of satisfaction in seeing a space come together, even if it's not quite the vision I had to begin with, and to know I did all I could on a budget and on my own.   In the end, I'll have somewhere pleasant to read or sip morning coffee or to chat with John or Katie or Bess.  

Yes, I have big goals. I know I said earlier this year I was getting too old to do all this myself.   And I am for the deep digging and the hauling about of heavy loads.   I can't help it though.  I want what I want or at least to do something as closely resembling what I want as I might have on a budget and with limited strengths.  I'm a little older so I'll just work slower and take smaller bites and keep working until I can't.  I want a pretty yard, the sort of space that Granny made for herself, with blooms throughout the year and bouquets in the house for months on end.  

I've been thinking of summer meals as well.  It's only 77F today but we saw our first mid-90 days last week which naturally makes me think I don't want to turn on the oven nor have a heavy meal.  I'm trying to find some new salad ideas; at least new to us whether they are new to anyone else or not.  I'm likely not going to ever serve a meal that is cold start to finish, but I think having a cold crisp salad, or a cool but light dessert (gelatins are always nice) will help keep the body thermostats at an acceptable level.   I like to have contrasts in a meal to balance things out:  Crisp and soft, hot and cold.  I find that especially in summer it's the contrasts that make or break a meal plan.  

I'll be using my little toaster oven more than ever.  Fortunately, I thought ahead when I was making up those casseroles and froze them in square 9x9 pans which means they'll also fit in the toaster oven, but I've found it's best to thaw before I bake because even that little oven puts off plenty of heat.  And of course, if I find I must use the oven, mostly when baking loaf bread, I'll definitely plan ahead and put other things in there while it's on because that is a savings in and of itself.

I tried to introduce Caleb to water play.  It was messy.  He doesn't think baths are fun, so I set him up in the kitchen.  We were at the sink.   It seems it's a big deal to him to turn the water on and off again.  I wanted him to simply dip water from one sink to the other sink.  No.  He wanted to fill things up with running water and only with running water.  My faucet is not stationery but swivels from side to side and I found he can easily reach the hot water handle as well as the cold water one.    He was happy, there's no doubt about it, but I was busy as could be mopping the floor, the countertops, the chair he was standing in, the fronts of the cabinet, himself...I told John if I do this in future, I'll take a dishpan outdoors to the porch and let him play there in just a diaper.  It would be so much easier!

When we were growing up, we didn't have access to a pool.  It was never going to happen at my parent's home anyway.  Daddy was deathly afraid of bodies of water and of drowning and fearful that we children would drown as well.   In summer, Grandaddy would take us down the river and find a sandbar with a nice shallow area big enough for us to play.  He'd fish and Granny would read and watch us.  We were savvy enough to see the current of the river and we understood very well that we were not to move off that shallow depression where water was a whole six inches deep at best.  But that really set Daddy's anxiety off and so we were no longer allowed that pleasure.

Daddy was always the first to tell us we couldn't swim in the motel pool when we were on vacation.  We all had swimsuits and as far as I know we never wore a swimsuit except when we were allowed to run through the water hose or sprinkler in our own yard.  Seemed like a waste of money to me then and now.  Why on earth not just let us get soaked in a pair of shorts and t-shirt? Though I am glad we had swimsuits the summers Granny took us to the pool.

After Grandaddy died, Granny took matters in hand and took us to swimming lessons.   I think she wanted our company to keep from being lonely, but she also was trying to soothe Daddy's fears. She drove all the way to Thomaston and picked up my cousins and took us all to a public pool that seemed quite nice to me way back then.  The pool was huge and shaped like a backwards capital L.  It was a very popular spot.  I took my lessons and learned to dog paddle and swim enough that I might possibly tread water.  It wasn't that I was afraid of the water, but I was shy, very self-conscious and hated having to demonstrate the lesson in front of all and sundry.  It just really hindered my ability to perform.  I can't say that it really mattered because Daddy was no more prone to wanting us to swim than he ever had been.  

Only once did Daddy relent.  We were staying in a cabin at a place that had a lovely pond.  The man assured Daddy that it wasn't over any of us children's head in depth.  Well, it was just a little bit deeper than that.  It came about up to Daddy's chest at the deepest.  Since Daddy was almost 6 feet tall it was a bit over our heads.  That was the only time he let us swim.  He even dared to come into the water with us.  It wasn't the water that was his undoing but the little fish that swam up and gently pressed their open mouth to his leg, arm, belly to see what this new thing was.  We kids weren't bothered by them having quickly discovered it was little fish about the size of our hands.  Daddy screamed like a girl.  More than once.  Finally, he got out of the water and just watched us.  He said he was getting leg cramps.  We knew his nerves were just shot from the fish being nosy, lol.  That's the only time I ever knew him to get anywhere near a body of water, except for standing on the shore.

Daddy apparently took his fear of water from his mother.  I don't know why she was so afraid, I never heard.   John's dad on the other hand, had good reason to fear water.  His dad's family lived near the Erie Canal and one of his sisters drowned and later one of his nephews.   John's family moved to Florida when he was just an infant and they lived near a canal as well.  John did learn to swim and played in the canals, but before he knew how to swim, he was forbidden to go anywhere near one.  He tells me that his dad found him playing about in the edge of a canal behind their home in Florida and he whipped him all the way home, the only time he ever recalled his dad spanking him.   That man had good reason in my opinion.   But there are no family stories of a drowning nor near drowning in my family to reason away the fear.

I have it in mind to take the boys across the field to the library this summer.  I think it would be fun to do that with them.  I'd love to say I'd do it every week, but I am setting a goal of every two weeks just until we see how this goes.  They might not enjoy it at all.   I won't take Millie, too, not at this point but I want to spend time with her, as well.  I'm hoping I can find a story time to do with her.

The library is something I also associate with summers, too.  It wasn't until I was in my teens that Mama began to take us to the library each summer.  She'd come home from work to pick us up at lunch and then take us by the library where we'd spend the afternoon checking out books and reading.  It was such a nice thing.   I'd like to share that memory with my grandsons.  I hope they enjoy it as much as I did.  Of course, they won't stay all afternoon long, but we won't go and be in a hurry.  It will be our time to enjoy, you know?

I suppose it's the weather has made me mindful of summer today.  And that the school year is ending in the next week.  It just makes me think summer.  It already looks like summer.  The trees are full of dark green leaves and the breezes have that sound of running water.   We've had blessed rain this week, but we were very dry prior to that.  We were coming home the other night and there was that dry parched sort of sour grass aroma as we came past a wheatfield, an aroma I have a hard time describing but it's definitely part of every summer memory I have.   However, the rain has made everything look pretty and green.  John hasn't mown grass in nearly three weeks.  He won't escape that job much longer, except that it's meant to rain some every day all week long.  

I better stop chatting and get my supper started.  It's been lovely chatting with you one again.

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