Home Grown

Thank you everyone for your kind words and wishes. It is going to take us a long time to get over the loss of Bella. She took a piece of our hearts with her. The smallest things remind us of her and then we have to collect ourselves after a pile of kleenex is disposed of and get on with our business at hand. I have never loved a dog like I love Bella.

I have written before about my front porch. Okay, twice. There is just something about my front porch that strikes me nostalgic and sends me back to my childhood. Hot summers, pea and butter bean shelling, ice cream trucks, cool breezes and good neighbors. My grandmother had a big white house and a long front porch filled with red and white rockers and a glider. Remember those matched sets from the 70’s?

As children we spent the mornings at my grandma’s watering all the plants on her front porch. And did she ever have plants. My plants look poorly next to hers and her numbers were far beyond mine. On hot summer mornings it could easily take an hour to water and feed her plants. In recent years I have felt a need to gather many of the same flowers she used to keep. A few that I had just couldn’t survive some of the super cold winters. Even thriving indoors was hard on them and they looked a bit ragged and worn by mid-winter.

Evenings at grandma’s often found people porch sitting. Porch sitting is a lost art these days but back then everyone sat on their porches and enjoyed the cooler evenings. Conversations, shouts of good evening and many salutations could be heard as families took evening walks and called to those who were content to sit and rock. My granddaddy was most often found on their front porch with feet up on the banister. He teased us children mercilessly, told us ’scary tales’, and intrigued us with rhymes and riddles. We didn’t figure out it was a joke he was telling us at the time.

He would say, “Run around the house 3 times without looking behind you and there will be two calves following you.” We would run and run and there never two baby cows appearing out of thin air for our pleasure. I was probably 10 before I realized he meant the calves of your legs. Doh!

I can’t seem to convince my kids to run like we did.

So, I love my front porch. Did I tell you that already?

I love my plants that make it look lived in and loved.

I love my rockers that are just now developing a slight squeak.

I love when people visit they love sitting on my front porch.

Perhaps there is something Norman Rockwell-ish about porch sitting when people come to our house. I know Steve never complains or has issues when I add plants or things to our front porch. He loves driving up to the house and seeing our porch welcoming him home. Our front porch is also his dream of a front porch.

I would love to see your front porch if you are willing to share. If you write about your front porch please come back and leave a link so I can come visit. Pretty please? With sugar on top? And a cherry?

16 Responses to “Front Porch Sittin’”