Porch Living

I've been doing some tidying today in anticipation of a small family reunion we are hosting tomorrow. There was little work to do in our living room, but the porch was a mess. We move onto our porch in the summer and I thought it would be fun to document what had migrated there.

Games....cribbage, thunderhole dice, bananagrams, and a homemade bingo-type game to help the girls learn their French.

The bird books. We currently have a big flock of Bluejays and a tiny hummingbird hanging out at the feeders. Our favorite, however is the Veery singing his evening song.

Handwork keeps appearing--cotton dishcloths, a cotton mesh shopping bag, a tatting kit, and some cross-stitch bookmarks are all in process right now. Can I confess? I learned to tat in 6th grade and now can't figure it out for the life of me.

Lou's big, fat suduko book gets use out here.
She loves anything with numbers.

It wouldn't be summer if somebody wasn't immersed in the stack of "Where's Waldo."

We linger so long that candles are often needed.

But really, none of this matters because what we're really doing these days.....

...is enjoying the antics of the newest member of the family....Calvin (as in Calvin Coolidge--and, I'll just say...for the record... that I, the historian, wasn't the only person who leaped at the name--Lou studied Vermont History this year and really liked Calvin, the man).

He was born at Kristin Nicholas's farm which turned out to be perfect as he isn't scared of dogs at all since his infancy was spent with 2 sheepdogs. We've had a very easy dog/kitten adjustment period. We're all in love.

So, here we sit on our porch--with sweaters--in July--listening to the rain--trying not to look at our rotting vegetable garden--knitting, tatting, playing games, doing French, and watching Calvin twirl about on the chair rungs, launch himself onto the screens, and snooze happily.