I really love my little kitchen patio. Especially in the mornings.
When the house was built the patio was tiny, just a 10'x10' square pad off the kitchen door with a chain link fenced yard for the dogs. That has evolved. Its now a wonderful place to sit, several years ago I formed and poured a patio extension so we now have a table and chairs, there is a Japanese style rock garden, with a rock fountain adjacent to the patio, and its shaded from the glare of the early morning sun by a locust tree. Flowers surround the patio as do decorative grasses and various bushes, an assortment of potted annual flowers brighten up setting.
So here I sit, just me and the dogs. A 91 rated Havana Club Criollo Robusto burns next to me, a rich black coffee sits next to that. Around me the birds are chirping, the woods are not but 30 feet away and team with jays, robins, finches, sparrows and others. 10' to my left a large 'mock orange' is in full bloom but the morning breeze is blowing the wrong direction for me to smell its very fragrant blooms (the cigar doesn't help that either ) This is the same patio where Anita aka: Ice Queen used to come to smoke her cigarettes because she was too polite to smoke in the house. And just like today with Misha sitting near my feet, Misha accompanied her too.
It is a small, intimate, private little patio that in the spring and summer is transformed into a mass of colors, scents and sounds. My workshop/garage is but 100 feet away but with the trees leafed out is all but impossible to see. The road to the front is hidden by the small hill and further obscured by some flowering crabapples and a weeping cherry that enclose the view to that direction. Behind me are dense woods.
For morning peace and solitude this is a happy place.
When the house was built the patio was tiny, just a 10'x10' square pad off the kitchen door with a chain link fenced yard for the dogs. That has evolved. Its now a wonderful place to sit, several years ago I formed and poured a patio extension so we now have a table and chairs, there is a Japanese style rock garden, with a rock fountain adjacent to the patio, and its shaded from the glare of the early morning sun by a locust tree. Flowers surround the patio as do decorative grasses and various bushes, an assortment of potted annual flowers brighten up setting.
So here I sit, just me and the dogs. A 91 rated Havana Club Criollo Robusto burns next to me, a rich black coffee sits next to that. Around me the birds are chirping, the woods are not but 30 feet away and team with jays, robins, finches, sparrows and others. 10' to my left a large 'mock orange' is in full bloom but the morning breeze is blowing the wrong direction for me to smell its very fragrant blooms (the cigar doesn't help that either ) This is the same patio where Anita aka: Ice Queen used to come to smoke her cigarettes because she was too polite to smoke in the house. And just like today with Misha sitting near my feet, Misha accompanied her too.
It is a small, intimate, private little patio that in the spring and summer is transformed into a mass of colors, scents and sounds. My workshop/garage is but 100 feet away but with the trees leafed out is all but impossible to see. The road to the front is hidden by the small hill and further obscured by some flowering crabapples and a weeping cherry that enclose the view to that direction. Behind me are dense woods.
For morning peace and solitude this is a happy place.