A Tranquil Quiet Place
We live on a very busy thoroughfare in St. Jame,s complete with more 18 wheeler rigs that you can count in one day. There is a food processing plant two blocks to the north. One block to the north is the railroad tracks that you can almost use as an alarm clock that could set multiple times within a twenty four hour period. Holding a conversation during the height of the hub bub is impossible. Did any of this register to us in the late 80s when the house was purchased for $8,500? Heavens no!
We began using a patio umbrella put up in the driveway to enjoy coffee and the outdoors. Other than the noise, the amount of people that would be passing by on the street and wander up the driveway was like “Welcome, Open House” was just as impossible. We decided to pop out a porch off the northwest portion of the garage and put a patio that went totally around the porch. That did the trick. We could sit out, cook out or be out in the porch and have some private time.
The Koi pond with its tranquil sound
With too much time on my hands and I began sizing up up the area east of the garage porch and decided that this could be the answer to being outside and finding a bit more quiet. This was the area that Dennis had the grill set up, but with several dozen octagon-shaped blocks, I pushed out the size of the patio to hold a small table and two chairs. Just the distance from the back of the garage porch to the street made a huge difference in the noise of the traffic plus the Oak and Maple trees are now leafed out, aiding with the filtering of noise. The winning element to the tranquil quiet is the water pump in the Koi pond.
The sound of the water can hypnotize me when I take a break from the gardens with my feet up on the neighboring patio chair. This area of the backyard has become my all time favorite. No one knows I am out there reading with a cup of coffee. No one knows I am sitting out there scraping mud off of my shoes. No one knows that I have decided to stay in my bathrobe until noon. Such a little effort has made all the difference in the world in creating this tranquil, quiet place.