By Trina Machacek

As the rushing river of summer starts to become a bubbling brook I have found time to use our hammock a bit more and I must say that whoever invented this backyard playpen needs to get a big ole gold toned metal to wear upon his or her chest. Maybe the metal could be shaped like a swinging hammock adorned with some blue and white ribbons to signify a summer blue sky with white fluffy clouds. Well, you get the idea. A hammock is a winner in the backyard array of outside furniture.

During summer I find time to sit Crossway on my hammock and rock it with my feet down as I plan my next hurried move. But at this time of the year, I finally have a few extra blinks of an eye to actually put my feet up and lay in my design of knotted rope hanging from a couple of hooks on a frame. There really is no other feeling one can get by hanging in the air, just a swingin’.

The Navy has it right. Putting sailors in hammocks on submarines is a masterpiece of planning. There is a Zen like feeling that you can only accomplish by laying in a hammock. I’m not sure about you, but as for me if I found myself under two or three hundred feet of water chasing an unseen enemy or worse yet trying to out run an unseen enemy, I would certainly need as many Zen moments as I could grab.

I believe a good sturdy hammock would make the best bed. My other half and I have gone from one bed to another trying to find one that we both can sleep in. We thought about bringing the hammock in to use it as a bed as we both found that sleeping wrapped in its airy goodness is about the best sleeping we have found. But I think if you take the outside experience away from the hammock it would lose half of its magic.

Magic. That’s a great description of the feeling you can get by laying in a hammock on a summer day. Where else can you let the air flow over and under you as you slip off into a light nap with the sounds and smells of your yard? However, yes there is always a however…

We have kittens bounding about our property. Several kittens and momma cats. The momma cats have found that off the grass there is a whole big world to choose a place to dig and bury poo. The kittens, however, haven’t discovered that the world and have come to find the grass is soft and close to the feed dish and water supply and that is where they have begun to start learning to poo. They haven’t yet learned the art of the buried part. So…

As I am hanging there in a great pose of summer splendor over the grass, there comes a wafting of kitten poo. Holy cats and kittens Batman! Why, oh why, does every wonderful thing have to have a down side?

If you get a brand new car, you get that new car smell, you get that giddy feeling of having a new car. You’re feeling all warm and fuzzy, then you get this big envelope in the mail that contains a big payment book. A down side.

You go to the grocery store and find a sale on cumquats. (Whatever a cumquat is.) You buy extra because you really enjoy a good cumquat. You get home and as you are going through your email you see another store has advertised cumquats on sale for like half of what you paid for your cumquats. Another down side.

You have to work at keeping your head above the downside. After all, you get to drive that new car each and every day. Sniffing that new car smell until it becomes your smell in that new car. Well that didn’t come out right, but you get it, right? On the other side, you only have to deal with that big old payment book just once a month!

Yes, I am a glass half full kinda gal. Actually, I am glass full kinda gal. If the glass is only half full of water the other half is full of air. I need both halves to exist, don’t you?
