Whether you're enjoying a warm summer day cooled by a ceiling fan, snuggled under a comfy sweater enjoying a chilled breeze, or dozing off to the acoustics of rain landing on the roof, a screened-in porch is a sweet place to be.

"Screened-in porches are a great way to extend the seasons and enjoy the elements of nature without all of the problems associated with outdoor spaces," says Dawn Cook of Dawn Cook Interior Design in Shaker Heights. "I always treat it as an extension of the outdoors -- the whole bringing-the-outdoors-in-and-the-indoors-out concept."

Says Lane Cummings, writing for ehow (tinyurl.com/d7ug3em), "A screened-in porch gives you the best of both worlds: an unfettered vision of nature and the surrounding landscape and protection from the elements."

But that indoor/outdoor hybrid element can also complicate decorating decisions. To offer some examples of homeowners who have pulled it off, James T. Farmer III penned "Porch Living" (Gibbs Smith, $30), a 140-plus-page hardcover filled with color photographs capturing porches ranging from elegant to rustic.

"Porch Living" isn't quite the size of a coffee-table book, but, with splashy photos and minimal type, it's overflowing with "steal this" ideas.

Porches featured in Farmer's book aren't all screened-in. Some are open-air. But being tastefully decorated and dripping with the homeowners' individuality is what they have in common.

In a telephone interview from his home in Kathleen, Ga., Farmer says porches have become more sophisticated.

"My clients pay as much attention to how they decorate their porches as they do the rest of their house," he says. That doesn't necessarily mean break-the-budget furniture and accessories.

"Porches are edited and are utilitarian for what they [the homeowners] need it for," Farmer says. "And that idea transcends budgets," he adds.

Some photos in "Porch Living" are tight shots of decorating details, such as beautiful tablecloths, fruit in pretty bowls, petite plants and more.

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A screened-in porch is the perfect spot for relaxing, enjoying nature

Express-Times photographer Matt Smith is offering a season-long look at some of the people who keep the Lehigh Valley IronPigs flying. Check back for more Down on the Farm features.

Next time you grumble about working over a hot stove making dinner, just think it could be worse.

Jan Giejda starts every work day at 7:30 a.m. wondering how hes going to satisfy a hungry crowd of 1,500 to 1,600.

Plus, as executive chef for the Lehigh Valley IronPigs, he also has to feed two baseball teams per game twice.

Its what I love, Giejda says of his job. Of all the places I worked and all the places Ive been this is the biggest challenge Ive ever had in my career.

Its his third season with the IronPigs, after a 22-year career in the food industry.

As we go behind the scenes at the IronPigs, you can tell this is a job that requires passion and organization.

Giejda is in charge of the 19 private suites, two party porches, team suite, four dugout suites, picnic patio (which seats 500), the Red Robin Tiki Terrace, press box, Pig Stop, Red Robin Oasis (where you can get cooked-to-order meals), the bar menu on the club level and catering. Concessions are a whole different animal.

Giejda jokes that he sleeps about four hours per night.

Before a 7:05 p.m. game, his mornings start with paperwork and by 8:30 a.m. hes already prepping for the following day.

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Down on the Farm: Cooking in the kitchen

Plant thieves target Joel Eisenbaum's home

Police are looking for a man and woman who, they said, have been making off with expensive potted plants right off people's porches in the Heights area.

On the Inner Loop Houston Crime Alerts Facebook page, there is post after post about two potted plant thieves.

KPRC Local 2 investigator Joel Eisenbaum is a recent victim himself.

"All of a sudden I see this guy bear-hugging one of my planters, moving slowly toward his car. I'm like, 'What is this guy doing?'" said Eisenbaum.

Eisenbaum said the back of this thieves' SUV was filled with potted plants, and he got a good look at the suspect.

"I swear this guy looked exactly like the singer Marc Anthony. I'm like, 'What is Marc Anthony doing stealing my plants?'" Eisenbaum said.

Residents said thefts have happened on Harvard Street, 17th and Studewood, just to name a few. Residents just want these thieves caught.

"When you're the victim of crime, even small petty crime, it's a bummer," Eisenbaum said.

Eisenbaum and other victims said the thieves are traveling in a green Honda CRV with paper license plates.

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Thieves steal pricey potted plants

As summer temperatures soar and our bodies break into sweat, we seek shelter indoors, where we're protected from bugs and heat. But even on the hottest day, we should not disregard the porch.

Screened porches offer an experience that cannot be found elsewhere. They are the meeting point between home and garden, offering exposure to the elements with the protection and comfort of being indoors. In other words, the best of both worlds.

"It's nature up close, but not too personal," said Washington, D.C.-based designer Christopher Patrick. "That's a fun luxury to play around with."

But screened porches are not always fun to decorate.

"It's a hybrid space, so people have a tough time figuring out how to approach it," said James Farmer, author of the book "Porch Living" ($30, Gibbs Smith). "It's not inside, but it's not outside. It's not the garden, but it's not the dining room. It can be whatever you want it to be, but having too many options is intimidating. People don't know where to begin."

To simplify things, Farmer recommends approaching the porch exactly as you would a living room. Decide what functions the space should serve and then decorate it accordingly, adjusting finishes and fabrics to suit an outdoor living space. The aesthetic goal, he said, is for the porch to be an extension of the home.

When designer David Mitchell decorated his porch, he enclosed it with screens to capture the nostalgic feeling of summer camp in North Carolina, a beloved childhood memory.

The challenge was making the narrow, 10- by 20-foot space seem roomy for a group and also pleasant during Washington, D.C., heat waves.

"I wanted room for six of us to have cocktails and dinner," he said. "Once I finally figured that out, I had to make it bearable."

Doing so required experimentation, but Mitchell settled on a combination of ceiling fans and Dyson floor fans. Overhead fans spin hot air around, he said, while floor fans circulate the cooler air before it rises.

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Decorating and enjoying a screened porch

ITS BEEN mild through early summer, but now weve come to the dog days of August, and that makes me think of screened porches.

Ride around Gilmer these days and youll see very few of them.

Commenting on a Washington Post web story, someone using the handle

wjc1va wrote in part:

Ahh the timelessness of screened porches. Look folks, I grew up i Florida before the advent of air-conditioning. Here is the time-line for porches in the South.

first a patio..then . . . you can use it two weeks in spring and two weeks in fall. before and after your are attacked by myriad mosquitos, wasps, ticks, etc

to fix said problem you screen your patio . . . [but] nobody in modern life will sit on a screened porch in a swing or rocker in 100-degree heat fanning themselves while drinking a mint julep. Said screened porch languishes.

-- ah . . . great idea . . . solve the problem by walling in said porch and adding air-conditioning.

The timeless idea of porches in the South and the inevitable evolution.

THIS PERSON (gender unknown) tells of a Florida experience that pretty much replicates my childhood in Gilmer.

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Sideglances

FITZ IN LONDON

Some sight ... fireworks ignite over the Olympic Stadium during the opening ceremony. Photo: Getty Images

It was a warm balmy evening in 1996, and I was walking to the opening ceremony of the Atlanta Olympic Games, John Huxley on my right, Peter Christopher on my left. The bus had dropped the Herald press contingent as close as it could get us, and we walked through a very poor neighbourhood to the brightly-lit stadium about a kilometre away. Out on the front porches of their houses, many families were gathered eating their dinner, and though they looked at us with mild curiosity, it was no more than that. And it was really rather shocking. Didn't they know that the opening ceremony of the Atlanta Olympic Games was about to get under way just an archer's arrow from where they were eating?

Yes, yes of course they did. But the intersecting point with their own lives was absolutely minimal beyond the fact that Spaceship Olympia had landed in their neighbourhood several years earlier, over their oft-bitter protest, and so they were just getting on with their lives.

On Friday evening last, it felt nigh exactly the same. The minibus drops us a good kilometre away in the heart of an impoverished neighbourhood bathed in the curious fluorescent light cast by a new version of the same spaceship - one that had landed in Stratford, East London, five years ago and has overlooked them since. Walking, walking, walking. Here, a couple of kids kicking a soccer ball along the footpath. There, a drunk lying in the doorway of an abandoned tenement. Right in front of us, a posse of youths pouring whiskey into a Coca-Cola bottle which they are then swigging from. This time, they barely look at us. They are not remotely aggressive, but it is simply like we aren't there. We have our lives and are heading to the spaceship, where the best of the seats are going for well over 3000 for four hours' entertainment. Many of them would not receive that in a year of welfare payments. So where is the connecting point?

Right there, in front of me.

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After walking 10 blocks, suddenly ahead the whole thing changes, from one side of the street to the other. Behind me lie booze shops, dark alleys, and mild urban decay. Ahead, just the other side of the pedestrian crossing, are bright lights, escalators, security men, and an entire sparkling Westfield shopping complex that we have to walk through to get into the stadium proper, a stadium that is the most sparkling sporting structure I have ever seen. As someone once wrote in these pages - and as a matter of fact it was me - ''sports stadia are the cathedrals of our age'', as serious cities try to outdo each other with the glory of what they have built. And in the London Olympic Stadium they have a Westminster Abbey for the 21st century, perfectly constructed to make 80,000 people feel they have an intimate connection with what is happening on the field before them.

And on this night, how splendid it is. The pomp! The pageantry! The music! And there is the British Queen, there is Michelle Obama, the London Symphony Orchestra, Rowan Atkinson, the finest athletes in the world, Sir Paul McCartney singing Hey Jude as we all bop along to the climax of this 27 million extravaganza, most of us with a sense of great privilege to be here. We are filled with the thrill of being at an event that hundreds of millions of people around the world are watching, and four hours later, we have real regret that it is over.

In our tens of thousands, we stream away as the lights behind slowly get dimmer, the security thinner, and then, suddenly, there it is again. That pedestrian crossing

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Ceremony dazzles, but not for all

Otherwise subdued porches and front yards came to life Sunday afternoon with nearly every genre of music one could hope for in a porch-to-porch walking tour.

The second annual Porchfest brought out Napans and visitors on foot and bike to sample the musical talents Napa has to offer. Roughly 80 performers took to makeshift stages on about 60 porches in historic parts of the city.

The great thing is that its local artists, local musicians, and weve kept it local, organizer Rachael Clark said.

Though the numbers of porches and bands have doubled from last years debut, Napa Porchfest is still a small-town event thats spread out enough to prevent overcrowding among attendees, Clark said. She couldnt estimate how many would attend the event that was hosted by Napa County Landmarks and the Napa Valley Destination Council, but said organizers expected about 250 last year and got 2,500.

It gives us chills, she said of the warm reception to the East Coastinspired, three-hour-long event. We might be pioneering a new thing in the Bay Area.

Mayor Jill Techel said it was nice to see residents taking pride in their homes and local musicians interacting with attendees.

To see neighbors, to see people you know, to see kids on bikes, its a great way for the community to get together, she said.

Laura Thomas, of Suisun City, came out to a house on Oak Street with her children and her husband, who was playing in a band there. She said Porchfest reminded her of living in a small town in Iowa.

It has turned out to be a very successful street party, she said from her shade-covered collapsible chair. Im originally from Iowa and they used to have street parties, but this is a lot more sophisticated.

Thomas called the event, in which groups of friends and families strolled from one house to the next, a marathon of bands that encourages you to be social.

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Big crowds turn out for small-town event

ON THE TURKEY-SYRIA BORDER Come nightfall, a bucolic farming village begins to buzz with unusual activity. Shadowy figures emerge from olive groves, clutching small suitcases. Cars crowd the winding rural road collecting and discharging passengers. Farmers step onto their porches, ready to offer a bed for the night to Syrians who have hiked across one of the countless illegal crossing points along Turkeys 550-mile border with their country.

On Wednesday, Turkey closed all of its legal border posts after Syrian rebels seized control of several crossings on the Syrian side. The move was prompted in part by concerns that Islamic extremists may have overrun at least one of the Syrian posts, at Bab al-Hawa, after a video posted online showed jihadi fighters there declaring they had established an Islamic state.

Turkish officials said that the closure would affect only Turks traveling to Syria and that Syrian refugees would still be allowed into Turkey.

But refugees do not use the official crossings. Nor do the rebels, arms smugglers, defectors and war wounded who have swarmed into southern Turkey in recent months, transforming one of the sleepiest parts of the country into a nerve center for the Syrian revolution.

Syrias other borders, with Iraq, Lebanon and Jordan, are witnessing similar activity on a lesser scale. But it is in Turkey, whose government long ago embraced calls for the ouster of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, that the Syrian rebels have found the warmest welcome.

We must take care of them because they are our brothers and sisters, said Suphi Atan, a spokesman for Turkeys Foreign Ministry in the south, referring to the 43,000 Syrian refugees who are being housed in refugee camps dotting the border.

Far deeper role

Turkeys role in the revolt goes far deeper than helping refugees, though to what extent it is actively aiding a war that has spun beyond the reach of world diplomacy is unclear. Turkey seems to be groping for a strategy to address the unfolding chaos on its doorstep, said Hugh Pope of the International Crisis Group in Istanbul.

Turkey wants to have a say in what happens in Syria, he said. But Im not sure its got any easy answers to what is going on. This is all new and unexpected for Turkey.

What is clear is that the Syrian conflict has already reached deep into Turkey. The quaint and ancient city of Antakya, the preferred destination for most Syrians crossing the border, pulses with the intrigue and gossip of the war next door.

Originally posted here:
Turkey a hub for Syria revolution as illegal border crossing points abound

FLORENCE, Ala. (WAAY)- Annette Floyd and Wanda Mullins sit on their front porches and visit every day. Thursday night during their visit, they heard something they never expected to hear in their usually quiet neighborhood.

"I said he had a gun, but I didn't see the gun," said Mullins. "I just had a gut feeling that, that's what he was reaching for. He pulled something out and there was a pop pop and that's all I heard."

"When she hollered he's got a gun, we started running for inside," said Floyd. "It was very scary."

Shortly after, Florence police responded to the call at the corner of Central Avenue and Conner Street. When officers arrived, they found 50 year old Jerry Ivey shot to death in his truck in the middle of the road.

Ivey's sister was a passenger in the truck with him but was not injured.

Police said that less than hour later, Ivey's first cousin 42 year old Raymond Clemmons turned himself in for shooting Ivey in the chest.

Clemmons has since been charged with murder.

"These two were good friends for many years and had grown up around each other, so it's a troubling time for both of these families," said Florence Police Chief Ron Tyler.

"It's certainly a tragedy for the Clemmons and the Ivey family," said Tyler. "All of them being related as they are, you would hope that family members could sit down in a calm and rational manner and settle those differences in a different way. We certainly wouldn't want it to lead to this type of violence."

Clemmons is being held in the Lauderdale County Jail.

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Muscle Shoals man behind bars after late night shooting

LOS ANGELES After living in what they had thought was their dream house six bedrooms, five bathrooms, 3,900 square feet in Ojai, Calif., complete with orange orchard and pool Wanda Weller Sakai and Kurtis Sakai found themselves wanting something different. Something less.

"We realized we'd rather downsize to something smaller and more humble and use whatever money we had left over to make something nice for ourselves," Kurtis said.

"One of the wake-up calls was seeing how much time and money I had to spend on water, property taxes, utilities and landscaping," he said, adding that the monthly water bill in summer was $700. "I started to think that, for the long haul, it didn't make sense to be in a house that big."

So they sold the house in Southern California and bought a 1,700-square-foot, 1971 ranch-house fixer nearby at the foot of Los Padres National Forest.

Working with architect Darwin McCredie, the couple created what McCredie calls "a transparent house" by adding 6-foot-wide glass sliders to every room. McCredie also added a master suite and office and rearranged rooms inside the home's original footprint.

The gabled roof of the garage was altered into a streamlined box, the bookend to the new office for Kurtis Sakai at the other end of the house.

Covered porches in front and in back, added to combat the Ojai sun, play out as a sort of Modernist take on the hacienda.

"That is what connects all the rooms in the house and creates outdoor rooms," McCredie said. "If you have a boring house, or even an ugly house, then the porch and the columns become the architecture."

A new retaining wall in the front yard "gives the house a strong base," McCredie said, and provides more flat, functional land. Sakai installed drought-tolerant plants that he said take just about 30 minutes a week to maintain.

Inside, the home's warm Modernism is courtesy of Wanda Weller Sakai, formerly director of design for Patagonia, now a fashion instructor at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles and owner of the Modern Folk Living boutique in Ojai.

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Less home closer to nature is more