For those of you not blessed to live in the Deep South, you may be completely unaware of a entire season we have down here. It falls every year -without fail- between winter and spring, and waits to begin until you have naively flung all your windows open and begun enjoying daily outings to the park once again. That is when it rears its nasty neon-green head. It's absolutely disgusting and lasts about a month. Y'all southerners know I'm talking about Pollen Season.
I grew up outside of Georgia and maybe it's just taking me a long time to catch on, but every single year I swear Pollen Season takes me by complete surprise. I never see it coming. I don't remember to remove my porch cushions or cover the grill and then one day I'll go to lay out on the hammock and instead shake my fist angrily out the back door at the sadistic green gods for besting me once again. The porch will be covered in inches of the filmy, sticky, sneeze-inducing, lung-coating powder. And I'll turn my back on the porch and with it my dreams of a whole spring-time full of lazy lemonade sipping afternoons in the backyard. Because while Pollen Season may only last a few weeks, it inevitably takes me several weeks after that to muster the energy to hose down, sweep out and wash up the porch. By which time it is June in Georgia, 98 degrees in the shade, and too damn hot to get off the couch.
But this year dear friends I have one less reason to hate Pollen Season. We may not be able to go to the park or get the mail without a face mask, but now the whole fam can sit on the back porch and watch the trees come into bloom without sneezing. It's a game-changer. The back porch has windows and walls and a solid floor and it is so lovely. We can sit out there and watch the chickens scratch and listen to the birds and see how the trees are transforming and no one gets dirty. I'm in love.
Here's the lovely "before" again for you:
And now after:
It needs some decor lovin' for sure - but right now these two chairs provide a good enough perch for watching the kids play or catching up on email and the kids seem to like the "less is more" approach when it comes to furnishings.
Anyone want to join me for a glass of sweet tea??