Our Lady of the Patio

Living in Palm Springs, we pretty much have 360 days of sunshine a year. Those other five days it rains like a son-of-a-gun for a few hours and then it is just overcast. Where I'm going is we spend a lot of time living outdoors because we have such pleasant weather. This may spark some debate, as the summer months are incredibly hot, but I happen to enjoy the 100+ degree temperatures. We installed a shade structure over the length of the patio, which surprisingly works quite well to make being outdoors in the summer very tolerable. (In the photo above you can see the shadow on the patio surface from the shade structure). Anyway, the point is we spend a lot of time outside enjoying the patio. So let me tell you about Our Lady of the Patio. Recently a friend of ours purchased a building that previously had a restaurant as a tenant. When they closed, they pretty much left behind all their furnishings, dirty dishes and all! While looking around the premises, we found a religious statue of the Virgin Mary, holding a baby Jesus. I didn't want to leave it behind for the demolition team, so I rescued it and brought it home. She now resides outside, near the pool and I have renamed her "Our Lady of the Patio". It's difficult to see from this photo, but her head has some sort of crown being lowered by angels or cherubs, it is quite elaborate. At any rate, Our Lady of the Patio presides over our desert paradise and offers protection to all who pass.

above: I mentioned the shade structure we have over the patio, you can see here how simple it is, yet it reduces the sun exposure on the back of the house, thereby reducing the temperature inside the house.

above: On our patio we have a fireplace (see first photo above) but we also have a Chiminea fireplace on the northwest patio. A Chiminea is basically a clay pot raised off the ground to burn wood. I like the detail of the sun cactus and moon on it. It makes for a nice cozy atmosphere on late evenings while relaxing under the dark, clear desert skies. Thanks for stopping by today. I hope you enjoyed meeting Our Lady of the Patio!

-Rick Rockhill