The view from our porch

I just wanted to note a minor detail. I am not as enthusiastic about our apartment's porch as Julia, but there is one thing I admire about it: the cast iron railing. The metalwork is stylized but recognizable as the young tendrils and woody stems of interlocking vines. I'm somehow grateful for any instance in which something artificial makes some sort of tribute to the nature that it replaces. Not shown in this picture are the little pea tendrils in the planter that echo these vines.