Living Large In Our Little House

Photo by Mary Nida Smith

One thing I love about Our Little House being so far out in the coun­try is the quiet.

I can sit in the morn­ing, as I have all this week, on the party deck or on the cov­ered front porch with the Fearsome Four, read­ing the news­pa­per and drink­ing cof­fee with noth­ing but the occa­sional buzz of the hum­ming­birds com­ing for a drink off of the feeder.

However, this sum­mer, there’s been an unnat­ural hum ring­ing through the moun­tains that the dogs have even noticed.

Continue Reading »

As I wrote last fall, that is typ­i­cally “nest­ing” sea­son for us humans, but of course, spring is nest­ing sea­son for most of the wildlife that sur­rounds us, includ­ing birds.

Last spring, we cleaned out some boxes from the metal stor­age build­ing and left them on the front cov­ered porch.

A lit­tle wren decided to make a nest there and by the time I dis­cov­ered it, there were lit­tle eggs already in the nest and we didn’t want to dis­turb her.

Although I love hav­ing my morn­ing cof­fee on the front porch in the warm weather months, for about two months we used the back door as much as we could. We kept a dis­tanced eye on her and her eggs. By May, we heard the lit­tle peeps chirp­ing for food. By the first of June, her lit­tle babies were all gone and I reclaimed my front porch.

Continue Reading »

We all have our morn­ing rit­u­als, and our cov­ered front porch allows me to engage in one of my favorites – sit­ting down with a cup of cof­fee, an actual news­pa­per, and my thoughts.
This is one of my favorite places that we built onto The Little House, as well as to the Belle Writer’s Studio.
We weren’t here when the foun­da­tion went in for The Little House and the first thing we learned about build­ing a house from 300 miles away – don’t try it. The front of The Little House is actu­ally sup­posed to be fac­ing the dri­ve­way, with the party deck fac­ing the lake below.
Instead, the cov­ered front porch is fac­ing the woods and while it is sup­posed to be the front of the house, is the last thing any­one sees when they visit.
Having spent the first morn­ing out on the cov­ered front porch enjoy­ing the view of the canopied yard was done was enough to bring me peace regard­ing its cock-eyed direction.

Continue Reading »