porch — Page 19

Sunday Morning on the Porch

July 18, 2010 at 11:24 am by Claudia

Lately, we’ve had to grab time on the porch in the morning or not at all. It is too darn hot the rest of the day. Yesterday, like an idiot, I decide to clear out an overgrown area of the back forty in the peak heat hours. What was I thinking? To be honest, I was a mite irritated that this area I had so painstakingly cleared out before I left for California had not been attended to. The guilty party shall remain nameless. It wasn’t Scout or Riley, although they look like they’ve been put in the slammer in these photos.

More of the porch:

Vintage Sue sent me these rocks from the Eastern Shore and I’ve used them in my indoor potted plants and here on the picnic table.

This table, as well as several benches that live on the porch were a lucky find by my husband. We walk the dogs just down the way on a quiet little road. One day he was walking along and saw all the furniture by the side of the road. He asked about the price. $25.00 for all of it, if we transported it ourselves. Deal.

The bittersweet part of this story and what makes the furniture doubly dear to us is that the former owner of the furniture was this man’s mother-in-law, who had recently moved in with them. I’d seen her walking around their property. A few months after we bought the furniture, there was a terrible car accident just across the road from us. An elderly woman lost control of her car and it plunged down an embankment. She didn’t survive the crash. It wasn’t until later that we realized that she was the same woman who sold us this furniture. You can see why it means so much to us. We spoke to her daughter one day and expressed our sympathy, offering to return the furniture if she wanted it back. She graciously told us to keep it and that she was happy to know it was a part of our little cottage just down the road.

Everything has a story. It has been loved by someone. Usually, we buy something vintage or weathered and wonder about its story. Who owned it? Where did it live before we found it? What stories can it tell? Thankfully, we know a bit of this story. And we are grateful.

Snow

December 6, 2009 at 9:39 am by Claudia

As I vowed to on Friday, I cleaned off the porch and stored everything in the shed. Not a moment too soon! That night, the weather report said our first snowfall was due on Saturday. Big, fat snowflakes fell and we were treated to our first glimpse of winter. This particular snowfall was very wet and only an inch of snow accumulated. Perfect. No shoveling.

This morning as I was letting the dogs outside, I took this photo of the sun rising through our trees.

Then I took this one:

Have a wonderful Sunday.

Cleaning Up & Cats

December 4, 2009 at 1:05 am by Claudia

Well, the time has come. I have to do some cleaning. The little pumpkins must go – goodbye. The porch must be cleaned and everything stored away for the winter. I’d like to blame it on the relatively warm temperatures; I have never waited this long to tackle the job. I wrote about it last year – I think there is a part of me that thinks if I leave all the pots and cushions and hanging plants on the porch, I can stop the oncoming cold and snow. Never mind that the plants in the pots have been dead since that first hard frost or that the hanging plants look pathetic and forlorn. I try to deny that my beloved summer is gone for this year. I put my blinders on until I am shamed into packing it all up. I was going to do it the other day, but my excuse was that it was “too windy.” Yesterday I was “too tired.” Today, I will do it. Hopefully.

Husband and I have to deal with the moss on our roof, too. This is a job we really dislike. Don has to get up on the roof and spray it with a bleach and water mixture. Then we wait a while and loosen it with a brush, eventually hosing the whole shebang off the roof. The moss is tenacious, however, so we do the best we can. Our trees are wonderful, but they do shade portions of the roof and it has been so rainy here this year that the moss is worse than ever. Every time I am ready to force husband out the door and start this task, the weather gets crazy and we have to postpone it.

I had to add this photo of one of our neighbors’ cats:

I shot this through our kitchen window. I haven’t seen the cats in a long while and suddenly I see them all the time. They are descendants of the cats that used to live in MHC when the ‘Cat Lady’ lived here. All the older residents of the town know who she was. Let’s just say that she loved cats and had many of them. When she died, the house was sold and it had to be taken down to the studs so that it might be ‘refreshed.’ If you know what I mean.

Have a great Friday!

Sunday Morning on the Porch

Snow

Cleaning Up & Cats

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

Archives