Leaves, Glorious Leaves

What a summer it's been.

All summer long my farm childhood has been brought to the fore by the spectacular growing season we've had. Even now, the rains seem to arrive with regularity. Not driving rains, but gentle growing rains, keeping the leaves green and stuck to their branches. Our 20-year-old almost dead box elder in the back still has leaves; even in its prime it was naked by mid-August.

I'm sanding and patching and painting the front porch...... again. I love our big old mansion and the expansive wooden porch with four white columns. But it's made of.........ha ha.... wood that's 100 years old next year. And that had no maintenance for many decades. It's time for another major overhaul; I've found the man, now I need to find the money. I'd been eyeing his ad for months and months ~ one of those little one inch by one inch ads in the local service directory. The line that got me was "a master cabinet maker for your porch". So when my finger went through a board in front of the column to weather, I finally called. And he appears to be the man for the job. If only our business would cooperate on the money front.

I know. I know. It's ridiculous to spend all that money on a porch you can't even sit on and converse with another human because of the traffic noise. But one never knows. Maybe the bridge will get hit by a plane, maybe they'll build the North Muskingum Bridge one day. Maybe there will be complete economic collapse at some point and we'll all be walking and biking and hosting chickens in the backyard in violation of health ordinances.

We can only take care of what's in front of us now, and what's in front of me is my peeling rotting porch.