I think Terri Webster Schrandt chose this topic just for me.
“Your entire yard is weathered,” she told me when I had the honor of hosting her for one night in our home.
My husband and I love the rusted look. It started when we built the fence around the pool sixteen years ago. He wanted it made from rusty rebar. I wasn’t on board 100% at the time, but as he pointed out, “It won’t look any older in 20 years.” He was right.
“I like that weathered, torn look.”
Maria Brink
You can see a few other weathered items in the picture. How many do you see?
“What was so good about it was that the set that they originally built stayed there, and weathered over the five years. It got five summers and five winters of weather. It became more and more authentic as we worked in it, and they added bits to it.”
Derek Jacobi
Like Derek discovered, some of our yard art we bought already weathered. Some of them weathered on their own over the years. You wouldn’t want to sit on this set.
“The entire economy, of course, is locked in a down cycle right now. Last time we weathered this was during another Bush presidency in ’90. We were locked in it for a year and a half and everyone came out of it.”
David Talbot
This year has been more than a little strange. Some industries, like the nursery business, actually did better than it would have because people stayed home and did DIY projects. Like many others, we chose this summer to decorate our garden in the weathered look.
“They think old people are lame. But they’re not. They’re awesome, & I know exactly why I think so. It’s because they’ve lived entire lifetimes. Loved. Laughed. Surrendered. Stumbled. Weathered, beaten, still they don’t crumble, not even as they inch toward death.”
Ellen Hopkins
The weathered fence hadn’t changed much in sixteen years, nor had the style we loved. We found the 1966 Ford dump truck. It is an old weathered soul that had worked full time, then part-time on someone’s farm. After a roadside thief stole it’s battery, it sat on the highway frontage road with a for sale sign on it for a couple of years.
It called out to us, and we gave it a home for its many years of retirement. Vince made it look a little more weathered by painting the headlights brown. We hate leaving it behind, but Vince also flatted the tires and rebuilt the rebar fence around it. It’s not going anywhere soon.
Just like our old cat needed to have kittens to liven it up, the old dump truck needed a companion. I found this little gem at Luis Nursery. He’s moving to Prescott with us. Sorry Mater.
“The spirit of Route 66 is in the details: every scratch on a fender, every curl of paint on a weathered billboard, every blade of grass growing up through a cracked street.”John Lasseter
Richard Dean Anderson
In the spirit of Route 66, Vince repurposed a section of the weathered fence. We used it to support tomatoes on one side and flowers on the other.
“The elderly have weathered enough squalls to know that this one, too, shall pass. They own the courage to be original; they’ve learned to hold their own values above the conventional wisdom. “
Sarah Ferguson
This yard art wreath of flower pots has attained a white patina in addition to its rusty look this summer under the California sun. This week it weathered a giant hail storm. The circular shape and weathered look made me think of “this too shall pass,” eternal, and what goes around comes around. Can you think of other phrases that describe this flower pot wreath?
“I always sort of swooned at the sight of the classic barn structures in central and northern Minnesota, where everything seemed rustic and weathered and made to age gracefully.”
Richard Dean Anderson
Minnesota is not the only place with interesting barns. I am wandering out of our yard a bit with this picture, but Vince and I spotted this weathered barn photo opportunity at almost the same time less than a mile from our house. If he could have transported it home, he would have. Click on the link to see the treasures I found there.
“When I write, I strain with every wizened fibre of my weathered frame to analyze every possible angle of any given subject.”
Jim Goad
The subject today is “weathered look.” Like Terri said, our yard is full of weathered things. I wonder how many of them the new owners will like. They are newlyweds, not weathered like us. My friend Sally told me she will take any of the weathered items they don’t want.
And though there is more yard art that you can keep your eyes open to see, I’ll show you the most popular item at our garage sale, the gazebo. It’s attached so by law it has to stay, but I could have sold it all day long.
So what weathered photo subjects get your attention? Check out Terri’s site for more participants.
Marsha Ingrao - Always Write 
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