A View from the Front Porch 1994

It’s a perfect morning to sit on the front porch and let the rest of the world go by.  I’ve learned to look over the many jobs that need doing and just enjoy the better things. (I wish)

The hummingbirds are out in force.  As several vie for positions at the feeder, hanging at the south end of the porch, we watch one sitting on the very tip of a blade of the Snake Plant.  How in the world can he perch there?  The end of that blade is razor sharp and how he can be comfortable on it is more than I can understand.

Another hummer sits in a nearby shrub, but when a tiny bird comes to the feeder this “guard” attacks and chases him away.  One wouldn’t think they could make so much noise, but noisy they are.  We stay busy filling the feeders, but what pleasure we derive from such a simple thing as hummer watching.  We notice as we get older that it is not the material things that makes us happiest, it’s the simpler ones.

A pair of blue herons, actually their color is brownish gray, pass over on their way to the neighbor’s cattle pond.  Their flight is so belabored – the wing span must be three feet wide with long legs trailing behind.  It’s a sight in itself and one that city dwellers perhaps are deprived of seeing from their front porch.

Whew, finally there has been enough dry days to get all the hay baled and now it’s being moved to it’s permanent home in the pole barn.  It’s a good feeling to know there will be enough feed for the herd during the winter.  To quote an old saying I’ve used here before, “Happy is the man who has a fat wife and a barn full of hay.”  John is truly blessed!!

The new hay bales are so heavy he has difficulty handling them with his small tractor and sometimes has to move them with the tractor in reverse rather than in a forward gear.  Those front wheels raise up off the ground and it scares me to death.  I’ve quit watching.

Conversation turned to our recent visitor –  coming from the big city to get corn.  We understood he would arrive in time for that Sand Mountain country breakfast that’s synonymous with an early morning visit to the Windy Knoll.

Said breakfast consists of homemade sausage, biscuits (which we sometimes call “cat heads”), eggs, grits, orange juice, coffee, Sand Mountain sorghum, honey and jellies of various kinds. Now after loading up on all this one is hardly able to work; however, our visitor said he was ready to “pick corn from the vine!!”  The very idea!

Then we “set in” to try to educate this man who grew up in the city.  After explaining that corn grows on stalks, we then had to identify okra growing in the garden.  Right away we saw this would be a long an arduous process — possible one without end.  Patience, where are you?  We need you, now!!

Front porch sitting, with The One I love Best — it’s the best of summer time and country living.