From My Front Porch

This is often the view from our front porch.  You can see our mare Stormy in her pasture (click pic to enlarge) with the neighbor's cattle right next to her on their side of the fence.  Stormy loves to hang out with her cow friends.  The babies really admire her.  Sometimes there are 5 or 6 calves staring at her through the fence.  I imagine they are thinking how beautiful she is, and they are hoping they will grow up to be as pretty as her.  :-)

We've been doing a lot of work on the house over the past year and a half.  This spring I've devoted time and energy to making our front porch more inviting.  I built a bed against the front foundation and planted some compact soft holly (no prickers!) and petunias.  I've planted three deck pots with a mixture of perennials and annuals: meadow sage, pink pincushion flower, curly parsley, dill, asparagus fern, lantana, trailing verbena, zinnia.  Many of these flowers are butterfly friendly, and I've already noticed quite a few winged beauties zipping around the front porch.

Soft Touch Compact Holly

Lantana

Pink Mist Pincushion Flower

I bought two 8 ft roll-up blinds at Lowe's a few weeks ago.  We're hoping to get them installed on the front of the porch this weekend.  Since the porch faces west, we get blistering evening rays from the sun, and really can't even sit out there it's so hot!  We just got the glider at a very economical cost a few weeks ago. On the far side behind the wooden bench, hubby had a good idea ~ install some lattice and plant clematis.  I'm all for that... sounds like it would eventually be really pretty, and it would help shade the porch and protect from the north winds.  Last but certainly not least (just costs the most), new front doors.  And a few hummingbird feeders.  :-)

Next year we may paint the trim an even darker color....  we picked a darker color than the house, but once it was on the windows and door trim and beams, you can barely see the difference between shades.

Here's a pic of the porch last year, before we even painted the house.... 

 

If you click to enlarge, you can see how far it's come.... the foundation wasn't painted then, the paint on the front beams was peeling and we've also replaced that lovely bulb fixture by the door.  (I know what you're thinking ~ why would I want to get rid of such a special and lovely fixture when it's so apparent that lots of effort went into its selection?!  Lovely for the trash can, I say... you can see the new fixture in previous photos.)

I love our view, so much better than my previous city view~  it's so relaxing to sit a spell, and see who comes to visit...

barn swallows dive and swoop, performing their aerial acrobatics, butterflies flit around and stop to taste the flowers' nectar, mourning doves peck nearby and coo their lullabies while upland sandpipers land on fenceposts or swoop overhead with their distinctive cries.

pheasants are plentiful this spring... all day long and well into evening we hear the male's plaintive turkey-like cry and wing fluttering (which sounds like a small drum beating) as he tries to attract a female mate.

the mockingbird is always lurking somewhere nearby, and sometimes lands on a fencepost right in front of the porch, singing his copycat bird song.

meadowlarks are never in short supply.  An occasional scissor-tailed flycatcher will zip by.  The canada goose is always flying overhead, honking while they find their way from our neighbor's pond to our pond.  Sometimes we see a great blue heron fly away from our pond.

and the frog's chorus is abundant and very loud this year, not just at night but also during the day.

Several weeks ago I saw a a black-crowned night heron fly away from our pond; the week after that, I heard their distinctive cry and got close enough to the pond with a pair of binoculars to see a juvenile black-crowned night heron in a tree.

Then we have these fantastic prairie skies which add so much to the beauty of our resident wildlife!

Click to enlarge... that's a crescent moon at the top of this evening photo.

I'll be working a toll booth this weekend, except for Saturday.  AAA predicts traffic will be higher this holiday weekend than it was last year.  I'm believing that, because yesterday we had much heavier traffic than usual.  My schedule is 3-11 today, and I'll just bet it will be a fast-paced and crazy day!

So, what do YOU have planned for your long weekend??~