A Summer Back Porch Smoothie

Many places in Texas broke records in high temperatures yesterday.  The Weather Channel explained that such high temperatures so early in the summer are due to the jet stream staying toward the north.  The lazy screeching of locusts and heat waves rising from the dry fields remind me of the sleepy, dusty days of August.

Those days aren't so bad when you can sit on the back porch with a cold drink and just be lazy.
But I often wonder who, nowadays, would be able to stand the heat like the old time farmers who labored in the hot fields from sun up to sun down.  They wore long sleeves and straw hats or bonnets to shield them from sunburn and drank from jugs of water wrapped in cloth and kept under a tree at the end of a row.  At day's end, they went back to the house, ate supper, had baths, and then, for a few minutes before bed, sat out on the porch, which was usually cooler than inside the house.  Life was harder in some ways but easier in others, and certainly more simple.

We kick back on our back porch and watch the redbirds, doves, and sparrows flock to the feeders and splash in the bird baths while the dogs sniff, dig, or stretch out under the trees a short distance away.  We sit out during the cooler parts of the day with a cool drink, but retreat inside to air conditioning when the heat gets uncomfortable.  One of my favorite drinks for the back porch is a smoothie because you can put just about anything in a smoothie and it tastes good.  So many variations and anything goes.  

Yesterday when the mercury climbed to 103F here in south Texas, I mixed up these tart smoothies that can quench any summer thirst on the back porch.  

1 cup of strawberry yogurt
1/2 cup of frozen blueberries
3/4 cup of cranberry/pomegranate juice
1/2 cup of small ice cubes

Serves two.