life

This is my front porch railing. Yes, it's a fairly new house. But this paint started peeling and cracking from day one. Then it began to mildew, then turn greenish in places. Now it has this growing on it, I suppose it's some sort of lichen. I don't really mind it, I think it's kind of pretty. It looks like the rings inside a tree to me. But I guess we should do something about it, because most people think porch railings should not look this way.

This lovely fall morning, Chad and I sat on the back porch and talked while we drank our coffee. One thing we discussed is that the back yard doesn't seem as big as it did before. And I think it really isn't. As I've mentioned here before, the forest all around us seems to be looking for any opportunity to take back this place we've cleared out to build a house. Life just does that. Tree lines creep closer every day. A seed can take root and crack concrete. Animals, plants and even people adapt to live under the harshest of conditions. With faith and a good attitude, patients facing insurmountable odds can be well again, or at the least make the most of the time they have. It's just the life we've been given; it wants to survive and grow.

You know how, when you have a decision to make, sometimes you think about if it will matter one, 10, or 100 years from now? Sometimes I wonder, if we were to abandon this place today, how long it would take for this land to return to the way it was before we came. Not that we're going to do that, but I think it really would not take that long.

So, considering that in 100 years, it might be hard to tell that there was ever a house on this spot, does that mean I don't have to clean house today?

Yeah, that's what I thought.

Nice try, though, huh?