Today I painted the backside of a fifty foot fence. The front I'd done a few weeks ago. It's a pretty fence, but I was glad my dad has a stone wall on the other side of the driveway, because more fence woulda made my arms fall off just looking at it. I was working solo today.

When I stood back to make sure I hadn't missed a single slat or underside, I swear I could hear my dad say "Good job." It came out really nice.

I had small white specks of paint on my face when I went to wash my hands in the bathroom. I don't recall any backsplash from the brush, but I was zoned out for hours out there, just painting and thinking about life, death, and fences. From now on, if I drive by a stranger's house and they are painting a front fence, I'm going to ask to help, because I'm not done thinking. I don't have a fence to paint. Our fence isn't the painting kind.

It's the last time I'll paint that fence... somebody else in a few years will go out there to wipe it down, hose it off, let it dry and paint it anew. Decades from now, somebody not even born yet will be out there painting that fence.

Fences and stone walls used to be put up to keep horses, cattle and other livestock from straying too far away. This house was built in the mid-1800's. The fence isn't as old as the house, but the stone wall is, and the fence is built upon a few old rock pillars that were used to tie up your horse upon, the kind with a metal hitch, except these are a bit shorter than other ones that were in the yard.

There were some big black ants hanging out with me as I painted the fence. I kept blowing them off so they wouldn't get stuck in wet paint. They kept following me around as I painted, and finally figured out I wouldn't blow them off if they stayed up on the top portion I'd already done weeks before. Ants are pretty smart. I remember when we first moved to the house, those same big black ants tried to camp out with me in my room, and I had told my dad "There's gigantic ants in my room and even on my bed!" "No problem, I'll take care of it," he'd said. He used some house debugger spray and the ants never came back.

Now they hang out at the fence. I'd always wondered where they went.

I cried when I got home.