I have driven many miles in my job and have seen many wondrous, and a few strange, things. Yet there is one sight that I see in all nine counties I cover, and that is there are a lot of fences out there. Fences around homes, businesses, schools and such. The ones I am talking about though are the ones surrounding fields, farms, barns and such things. Some are new with new wire running between new wooden or metal posts or poles. Others are old bare wood or rusty metal poles leaning at angles of decay as time has put forth. Of these some are graced with old barbed wire lines running the race in between poles with varying degrees of dignity. These are the old fences to nowhere.

There are working farms that are surrounded by fences and those fences have a purpose. They maintain the boundaries for the owners of cattle, horse and livestock producing farms. As well as keeping the animals within a contained area, they also mark the foot print of the many corn, wheat, soybean and tobacco farms around the area. Others are old fences to nowhere and they seem to have no real purpose. Those are the ones that intrigue me the most. I will, from time to time, see an old barn or a lone broken down fireplace or chimney wrapped in the grasp of natures tentacles still standing within the fences grasp. I wonder as I remember these remnants of the past what else has time erased from sight. Maybe that is why those old fences to nowhere exist.

Old fences to nowhere have a story behind them, a tale no one may ever know. They may have had within their seemly trifle walls, a history and a story that was as grand as any ever told.  Now within their somber gaze a new history is being written. Flowers, plants and animals now claim the space within and dress it within the tides of natures own pulse.

I walk the old fence to nowhere on our place and wonder about those who made this fence. I was told there was at one time a working lumber mill on our place. As I some times allow myself to do, I think and I wonder about the when and why. When and why was this fence put up and how long has the fences to nowhere stood? What life did it contain within? I know not but I am filled with wonderment at the possibilities.

I follow the lay of the old fence line as it intersects with the newer one. I walk about, with camera in hand, and notice the contrast of colors and textures the barbed wire has with the setting it is in. I take my camera and I shot. I take pictures of the old poles and barbed wire and some of the new. The old poles I shoot in B&W. The newer barbed wire in color. Now lets let the old fences to nowhere tell their tale.

A Fence To Nowhere on our place.

An old barb on our barbed wire fence.

A newer barb on the newer barbed wire fence on our place. I choose this one because it looks like a spider may have built a web inside the barb at one time.