Alfresco Naps

Picnics, bike rides, plump blackberries, swimming holes, ice cream cones, alfresco naps.....oh yes indeed, summer is on.  This Andrew Wyeth painting pretty much sums up the feeling of idyllic summer days for me:

Not that I get to do this delightful and healthy type of lazing as often as I'd like having an energetic toddler underfoot, but I do what I can.  We in the Burns clan like to nap and if it can be outside during a warm summer's afternoon with a breeze ruffling our hair, all the better.  In the house where I grew up, we had a downstairs porch for eating and an upstairs porch with a canopy bed for sleeping.  Here is my dad showing us how it is done (those hats do come in handy)...

I've been trying to give Xavier as many alfresco naps as possible, like this particularly delicious one...

 

This is one of my favorite photographs from last summer, taken in my sister's back yard when Xavier was just a wee little guy.  I mean, really, does it get any better than this?

I read that the brilliant Benjamin Franklin believed in taking "air baths" and he'd spend a few hours in his birthday suit every morning out of doors in every season.  The Japanese like to go "forest bathing" when they walk in the woods, considered very healthy for the body and mind. Surely then alfresco naps - in the buff or not - make for healthy, hearty and happy people.   I'm certain I could find a study somewhere to back me up.  I'll do some research....right after a little snooze...