The view from the front porch is fine today. The temps and the humidity are down and there is just enough of a breeze to make the garden dance and keep the skeeters at bay.

Mornings in the garden belong to the birds. As I sat on the porch this morning, morning coffee in hand, a hummingbird hovered right beside me, checking out the pink flowers on a big pot of angel wing begonias before heading back out to the salvias. The goldfinches were busy taking apart the seedheads on the cone flowers, and a male cardinal decided he had better take advantage of the birdbath before the sun heated the water. A pair of house finches raised a brood in a hanging candle sconce this spring. The whole family now likes to perch on telephone wire over the garden. My bedroom opens onto the front porch, and I am often awakened early by the song of a Carolina Wren who likes to sing from the porch rail.

Now, at midday, the butterflies are busy working the tithonia, bronze fennel and Brazillian verbena. Looking out my window now, I see assorted swallowtails, viceroys, monarchs, cabbage whites and painted ladies, plus some species I don't know. Bees, wasps and other flying insects are at the flowers from sun-up to sundown, the buzzing and humming of their wings provides constant background music for the flowerheads as they wave and weave in the breezes.



Late night is when I really have time to enjoy the porch. All is quiet, then. It feels like I have the world to myself. That is when and where I do most of my singing. Moths move from flower to flower all night long, illuminated by the streetlight across the road.

Janie