The Old Picket Fence

Years ago we hired a friend to build our barn.  It is the red barn you see in the banner above and in the background of the picture below.  Rather than purchase new materials, our friend had some left over lumber from a construction project and then he sought out someone who wanted to tear down a shed.  He proceeded to demolish the building and reclaimed some of the old tin, lumber and tongue in groove siding to construct our barn.  This kept costs down and added a little character to our barn.

When he had completed erecting our barn, there was a pile of leftover tongue and groove siding that remained.  In keeping with the reclaiming theme, I made a pattern and used an old jig saw to make pickets and constructed a picket fence in front of the garden.  The boys and I then whitewashed the picket fence as shown in this post: Whitewashing  I always wanted a picket fence and the fence served both an aesthetic purpose as well as a functional one – it looked good and kept critters out of the garden.

A white green picket fence?

Well, fast forward a few years and our picket fence has fallen on rough times.  It no longer serves an aesthetic purpose.  There is a green tinge of algae that covers the pickets and while this could be remedied with a good spraying with a pressure washer and gentle scrubbing with bleach, it would be a waste of time.  The fence is too far gone.

Pickett's Charge...

The pickets, made from old tongue and groove siding, are not made from treated lumber and out in the elements, the fence quickly rots.  If I was to use a pressure washer to clean it, the pickets would break off, much like the ones you see on the gate.

Where moth and rust (and rot) destroys...

I hate to see things in disrepair like this and I have it on my project list for this fall to replace it.  Over lunch today I was researching to see if it might not be a better idea to go with white vinyl picket fence panels instead of a wooden one as I’d only have to clean the fence with bleach and water versus replacing the fence again.  An eight foot panel runs roughly $90 and I’ve got about a 24 foot stretch not counting the gate.  It’s not cheap, but more permanent.

Wooden picket fences are sort of like people.  We were created for a purpose.  Although we may like to think we look good, our time on earth is fleeting and our physical bodies are not immune to the Second Law of Thermodynamics.  We get stained each day by the world and worn down and slowly decay.

James 4:14

Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.

How sad.  However, that’s not the end of the story.  Our old picket fence will probably be taken down and get burned in a bonfire this fall.  We don’t have to be exactly like the picket fence.  Unlike the picket fence, we have souls that will live for eternity.  Although our bodies wear out, our souls live on.  Although our picket fence will burn, our spirit lives on and yearns.

John 3:16

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life."