Barbed Wire

While cutting firewood this past winter I tripped over an old piece of barbed wire that was barely sticking out of the ground.  Happens a lot around the valley because so much of the land over the years has been used for keeping some sort of animal from getting out or in some cases keeping bears from getting in.  While I curse it when I find it because it's dangerous for animals and chainsaws, when I looked at it I realized that it was well on it's way to returning to the earth.  Much of it was so old that the metal was rusted, crystallized and brittle.  Since then I've paid attention to some barbed wire fences and noticed than even when it is above ground, after a number of years the galvanizing wears and if you look closely this 'barb' has become habitat for lichens, along with rust and weathering.  While it seems pretty permanent, I guess it's just time that determines when it will disappear.  Grizzly