It’s a beautiful day today from my front porch. As I glance around I can see my glorious world and all of nature’s prizes. Cross the street I see the large fragrant magnolia blooms, snow white and sunny, the sun beaming straight down on their petals, so pretty contrasting with the magnolia’s greens. Behind my great-grandmother’s house I see the dark blue sky sketched from Father Sky’s pastels’ box. His clouds are rendered thin, resembling tuffs of cotton pulled from their bolls and dropped along the horizon. The larger cotton clouds have their crowns colored cigar smoke gray, others carry a grayish blue in their bellies.

To my left I see my little vegetable garden, thriving in their cow mineral lick tubs. We’ve had too much rain for oldest brother to till the flower bed but I’m happy with the volunteer zinnias. Their blooms will provide a pageant stage for my tap dancing butterflies. Mr. Tomato is carrying 27 tomatoes on his vines. I am so proud of him. I hope he sees fit to ripen one before I leave for my beach trip to Hilton Head with my grandchildren. Mrs. Tomato was slow to grow. Maybe I should have put her pot by the mister. She’s in the end pot, full of blooms and three little tomatoes. She may be mad because her pot plainly says cucumbers.

My cucumber is producing more than I can eat. I cut them up and put them in a Mason jar with vinegar and sugar. The plant looks peaked but keeps going like the Energizer bunny. My mint is so pretty, dark green and glossy, doing its best to push the rosemary planted with it out of the pot. I’ve enjoyed a few squash but the rain each afternoon has been too much. The bell pepper is laden with peppers. I need to pick them today.

Behind my vegetable pots is a broken down scarecrow. She’s seen better days, her apron is faded, her sunglasses askew, one earring missing, her chicken boots thrown to one side. She’s longing for last year’s zinnia and sunflower blooms. She doing her best, guarding the volunteer zinnias from the weed eating crew and watching Fatty and his squirrel friends frolic on the biggest bird feeder in the yard. I’ve given up on the squirrel thwarting. I’m enjoying their frolics.

On my right I see the beautiful yellow petunias in the porch bannister urns, home to the pollen hungry bumblees and the occasional hummingbird. Just realized, every bloom in my yard is yellow except for the pink zinnias in the front steps yellow watering can. I’ve made a cucumber trellis, unintentionally, from my mother-in-law’s Mexican wrought iron settee. I put a cucumber plant in a clay pot near the settee to wait till I fixed a place for it in the pot garden. I forgot about it. Next time I looked it was climbing up the settee like a trellis with two cucumbers hanging down ready to harvest. It’s making friends with the limelight hydrangea by its side.

Looking past the cucumbers my eyes land on the pretty sunflowers, planted by my songbird friends around the bird feeders, blooming in all different stages of normal and distorted, each bloom beautiful in its uniqueness. Martin Luther said, “God is in all creatures, even in the smallest flowers.”

As I write this, a tiny down bird feather lands on the iPad screen, beautifully watercolored in the whites and grays and pink oranges of a juvenile cardinal. Before I could save it, the breeze picked it up. Thank you, friends! I loved it. I see the songbirds on the bird feeders, myriads of intricate watercolors on their wondrous plumage, singing symphonies to me in thanks for fresh water and sunflower seeds, singing in choir for God in thanks for the gift of another sunrise and another sunset. “No matter what yesterday was like, birds always start the new day with a song.” Love this quote and often think of it when the songbirds wake me in the mornings.

Now my eyes rest on the porch. My two pets, a dog named Penelope and her cat named Kat, sleeping together in the family’s porch playpen. Kat just jumps in whenever she pleases. Two spoiled creatures, one saved from the humane shelter, the other saved from a life of homeless wandering. Pope Francis said, “Let us be protectors of all of Gods Creatures.” And resting on the porch near the playpen is the proverbial 40 pounds of sunflower seeds and two large peace lilies, gifts from friends when Chief died four years ago.

Marty Rubin said, “Every bird, every tree, every flower reminds me what a blessing and privilege it is just to be alive.” As I write, tears run down my cheeks from a deep ache in my heart, longing for my husband, Chief. As I look around the porch, I feel his presence in the wooden double rocking chair. He lived his life knowing and feeling the blessings of being alive. He loved the time of spring gardening and was such a faithful steward of the land. He pursued recycling with a vengeance, saving things that should have been thrown away, but if they wouldn’t dissolve back into the earth he just found a place to stash them. He wanted his grandchildren to have a clean earth.

As the heat and humidity of this gorgeous summer day drive me to the coolness of my house, I open the wooden screen door on my 125-year-old home, tripping over my multitude of God’s blessings as I walk over the threshold.

“When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive — to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love — then make that day count!” — Steve Maraboli