Swing with me now... Oh, the...

...Old Gray Mare, she ain't what she used to be, ain't what she used to be, ain't what she used to be.  The old gray mare, she ain't what she used to be, many long years ago.

Okay, so I'm no old mare, but I am working a good bit of grey in the mane.  And, this song has been humming in my head since Saturday afternoon while we were cleaning up from our first morning of painting and while my muscles were telling me to hire a painter.  Oh, if only I could my dear muscles.  If only I could.  Alas, no one around here to hire for such work.

It turns out that painting a post and rail fence (also known as a Morgan Fence around here) is a stinking lot of work.  And for all the work, it's somehow less rewarding than hours spent planting, weeding, and deadheading in the garden.

That said, 39 gallons of paint and roughly 44 man-hours of "blood, sweat, and tears" (really just sweat) and the fence is completely painted.  All 4.5 acres of it.  It now gleams so whitely (hey, why isn't "whitely" a word?!) that it's as if someone turned the lights on across the street.  No longer does our aged and weather-seasoned fence blend in to the natural surroundings.  Now it stands out like a...bright white fence.  It looks lovely against the lush green background of the field.

May we never have to do that again.  Ever.