The Screen Porch

AAAH.  Don't you wish you were me?  Just minutes ago, I was sitting out on my screen porch, safely ensconced in my Sky Chair.  The breeze caressed me, I was rocking gently, surrounded by the peeping of chicks and the nibbling of bunnies.  The crickets are chirping (fine, as long as the dang things STAY OUT OF MY HOUSE), the cicadas are singing, and I even had a book.

Mine's blue, but it's heaven.

Now that it's late spring (yeah it got a little warm today--summer's on the way!), the screen porch is THE place to be around here.  It's about 8 feet wide and 20 feet long.  Scott has his hammock chair set up out there, I have my Sky Chair (and if you don't have one, you simply must get one!!).  It's been used as brooder space for chickens, shelter for bunnies, space for hardening off seedlings, a place for the egg fridge . . .you name it.

Still, I can go out there and sit in the breeze (it's screened on the north, east, and south) without having to worry about rain or mosquitoes.  Sometimes flies get in but hey, I've got a flyswatter and I'm not afraid to use it.  Flies make good chicken treats.  We can watch storms go by, we can watch fireworks in town, and we can just chill out, relax, and communicate with each other. 

Scott and I used to sit on the porch at our old city place every night and use it as talking time.  You know, what happened that day, what made us happy, what was bugging us . . .the way a good marriage should be.  However, it got a little distracting, having to continually swat june bugs out of my hair, or (as happened once with my mom) having a huge preying mantis land on my glasses.  Now we don't need to worry. 

Screen porches seem to have gone the way of the dodo.  That's really unfortunate.  It's a great place to kick out, reconnect, and relax.  Of course, many of those things have gone extinct too.  The more we lose touch with those closest to us (our family, then our neighbors), the more we lose touch with the world as it should be. 

If you possibly can, build yourself a screen porch.  It's not hard.  You'll thank me for it later.  I'm going to head back out to my little bit of paradise.