Front Porch Dreamin'

I didn't realize how dark it's gotten. I've been sitting on my not-quite-finished front (and a little around the side) porch, cruising the internet on my laptop with my dogs all around my feet. When I first sit down, they run up and rub wet noses all over me. The biggest even snotted on my keyboard a little tonight. After a couple of pets, I make a shooing motion and they turn a couple of circles and claim their spot nearby where they can watch me. I love this porch.

Earlier today, my daughter and I set up our canvas chairs on the side deck and relaxed in the late afternoon. A storm was rolling in, with scary gray skies punctuated with sharp lightning bolts every now and then on one side and sunshine and blue skies on the other side. The line of storm was quite clear. Wind rushed back and forth, and the green bellies of the leaves changed the color of summer to a softer pastel for a while as they cupped themselves, anticipating the sweet deluge.

Just off the porch is a huge patch of flowering thistles that were home to dozens of butterflies this evening. We watched their bright yellow, black, blue, copper, and orange colors move lazily from purple cluster to purple cluster. With the storm's winds, a handful of early down took off and floated out toward the orchard.

My daughter asked me what type of butterflies were out there, so we spent a few minutes on my smart phone searching to discover their names. We couldn't see quite clearly if the yellow butterflies had one tail or two, so we hopped off the porch and snuck up as best we could with a butterfly-chasing puppy at our feet. Much to our delight, after some observation and surfing, we found out that the yellow butterflies are the same as the black butterflies! Eastern Tiger Swallowtails have a light and a dark type. As we exclaimed and reveled in this knowledge, thunder rumbled and my daughter, who is terrified of lightning, grabbed my hand for a mad dash back onto the safety of the porch.

The chocolate lab puppy didn't follow; she'd found a Swallowtail that was leading her a merry chase across the back field.

We sat back down in our makeshift patio furniture and laid our heads back against the canvas. The crickets chirped, the cicadas hummed, and occasionally a bird would call. I looked over at my beautiful little girl and watched the sunshine turn her strawberry curls to pure fire. I love this porch.