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I light the gas heater in the back porch of our house after my wife and I get the boys settled into their beds. Our house, filled with sounds of talk, laughter, music and squeaking floorboards during the day, becomes quiet and serene during the evening hours.

On the porch, during the last hour or two of the day, I can enjoy a good book or tie some smallmouth poppers or trout flies. This night, as I carefully wind fur dubbing and hackle feathers onto a small hook, my mind takes me to familiar waters on a warm spring day and I see trout rise.

Sitting at my fly tying table, my eyes are drawn to the items that adorn the walls and shelves in the porch: fly rods and reels, Kromer caps, antique barometers and German steins, wooden snowshoes, an upland vest, numerous deer antlers and framed photographs. Many of these personal items invoke vivid and indelible memories that comfort me. Other items picked up along the way somehow seemed, at the time, to be deserving of a prominent spot somewhere in the porch.

Some would argue there is too much stuff in our porch, and to those that would make that statement, they'd be right - to a point. To those folks, the old porch is indeed filled with stuff. But stuff is funny. We keep it around and cherish it when the mere sight of it brings to mind memories of good or pleasant times. To others, they see stuff. To me, I see objects and artifacts that recall a lifetime of experiences. I'd have a story to tell about most things you'd find in our porch.

Our black lab, Ned, smells something interesting wafting beneath the door from the kitchen and moans as he gets up off the floor. The floor of the porch isn't properly insulated and can become quite drafty, so we keep the two doors that connect the porch to the main house closed to keep the cold at bay. Ned looks over his shoulder at me and waits patiently as I get up to let him out. When I open the door I can smell it too. Something is baking. I can also faintly hear Tony Bennett sing a bouncy tune about picking a plum and how the best is yet to come.

The rustic porch was built in the late 1950s and juts from our house, an 1869 Italianate listed as the John Daubney House on the National Register of Historic Places, like an architect's afterthought. The knotty pine walls, darkened with age, and Berber carpeting contrast sharply with the formality of the main house. To be honest, I cannot for the life of me fathom why it took nearly 100 years for somebody to wise up and add a porch onto the back of our house. I couldn't imagine the house without it, as it truly does balance the mood of the place.

The old porch has a good personality that radiates a warmth all its own, even on those cold fall and winter days and nights. The things you find in it give it the feel and patina of a gentleman's lodge. I like our porch. It's far from perfect, with a couple of water-stained ceiling tiles and ill-fitting windows, but it's comfortable, like a favorite chair, and I like it never the less. It's a good porch.

Dan Brown's weekly outdoor column is brought to you by Frankie's Bait and Marine, in Chisago City, and St. Croix Outdoors, in St. Croix Falls, Wis.

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