Bee Happy, Bee Grateful, Bee at Peace - Enjoying Nature's Bee-uty on the Front Porch

With temperatures soaring in the nineties and humidity and dew points equally as high, appreciating the summer days takes some change and adjustments. The porch.....now decorated for the remainder of the summer with a playful, whimsical bee theme is a place to contemplate, enjoy the lush green outdoors, and find a bit of quietness and tranquility, even if it means enjoying it only in the cooler hours of the day.   

The porch is a place to come for a simple retreat and bathe in the plenitude of the cool shade.  A glass of cold, fruity wine and a slice of savory Garden Focaccia Bread offers a delicious, uncomplicated afternoon indulgence while lingering on the front porch too.  Perfect for a casual moment of relaxation and rejuvenation during a less than ideal day.  

Creating a bee skep and honeycomb wall decor for the porch from supplies I had on hand was fun and gratifying and was my inspiration for the rest of the porch decor.  With the further encouragement of the coronavirus stay at home instructions, however, it became a rewarding challenge to design something from items I had only at home.

  

So it meant bringing out some of the cheerful sunflower napkin holders for the black and white polka dot napkins.

Of course, I fell in love with the sunflower and bee fabric from Hobby Lobby and had to sew two soft, puffy pillows.

Striped ticking fabric blends in well with more puffy pillows and a floral front door decor.

It prompted me to use the remaining black and white mini polka dot fabric for a center pillow. The remnants of yellow felt was just enough for a large sunflower positioned in the middle of the dotted pillow and was surrounded by felt bees which were purchased for a previous project.  

The black wire basket was loaded with the essentials for the afternoon refuge on the porch.

Just enough sunny yellow color is used to bring a smile.   Hints of sunshine pierce through the Japanese Maple tree and transforms the porch with patterned shadows that dance in the breeze.

A large pan of Garden Focaccia Bread infused with garlic and oregano flavored olive oil makes a lovely breadscape to savor and allows a bit of time to pass for relaxation on the porch.

It even reflects some of the elements of the front porch with black olive and lemon zest bumble bees and yellow pepper and chopped black olive sunflowers.

Creating Garden Focaccia Bread is a designers dream.  The possibilities are endless.  Your focaccia can look like a botanical garden, if you so desire.  However, with limited herbs and veggies and the extreme temperatures, baking and staying in the kitchen for too long poses a higher risk for overheating.  Therefore, I kept my own Garden Focaccia Bread colorful, but simple and baked it for the required 20-25 minutes very early in the day when it was so much cooler. 

Once baked to a lovely golden brown, it is ready to serve slightly warm with garlic butter or black olive, feta bruschetta spread.  The scent of the baking focaccia bread alone permeates throughout the house and escapes to the front porch.  How enticing!  

Although being restricted to home is a challenge in itself, it also provided me the opportunity to take on learning new skills, especially in the art of bread-baking.  In the past, working with recipes for baked goods which require yeast didn't always go as hoped and commanded patience and fortitude.  From my earlier experience, however, it meant not giving up after several attempts of making breads or pastries which didn't often turn out well or at all.  However, now with more time at home, I became even more determined to learn the art and science of bread-making and finally perfected it.  I can truly say that this following recipe for the Garden Focaccia Bread has erased any further doubts and hesitation for working more with yeast in the future.  

This is the recipe I found and followed from Pinterest.  The only change that I made was that I added garlic powder and oregano, instead of rosemary, to the olive oil which was drizzled on top of the dough and the dibbles before it is decorated.  I hope you will like Liz's recipe too.  

   https://sugargeekshow.com/recipe/focaccia-bread-art/

Bee content and have a cool summer day on the front porch.