The Wheelbarrow

I used to own a wheelbarrow. Thirty years ago I envisioned a vegetable garden in my large Denver yard, imagining family meals composed of the food I would grow there. I rented a sod-remover and took up the grass from a large section of the yard. Then I rented a roto-tiller to turn the soil (I later learned that roto-tilling is a good way to lose your topsoil). And then I bought a wheelbarrow, because I wanted one. When I used it to move heavy bags, awkward containers of plants, soil, and rocks, I felt like a real gardener. A person of the soil.

 

We moved into the house in November. Eighteen months later I married a Canadian, sold the house AND the wheelbarrow, and moved to Toronto. My vegetable garden saw only one brief season.

 

In Toronto I wanted to own another wheelbarrow. But our house is a city house. Although it has both a front and a back yard, there is no access to the one from the other, except by going up 6 or 8 steps, through the house itself, and down 6 or 8 steps. Not good wheelbarrow terrain.

 

Even though I no longer have access to or need of a wheelbarrow, I still love the idea of transporting heavy loads simply by lifting those two long wooden arms. Probably if I had one now—and if I had a garden large enough to require a wheelbarrow—I'd get tired when I used it. I might find that I no longer had the strength to do more than one or two loads without taking a break. I might have to acknowledge that I am no longer 30. Or 40. Or, all right, 50. We'll stop there.

 

But my son has a wheelbarrow. His yard isn't huge, and he probably doesn't really need one. But I would never tell him so because I think the love of wheelbarrows might be an inherited trait. It may be in his genetic make-up that he simply must own a wheelbarrow to use whenever it is even remotely appropriate.

 

He also bought a child's wheelbarrow for his son, Sam, and the summer before Sam turned two, he eagerly pushed his wheelbarrow all over the yard while his parents were gardening. He obviously inherited my love of wheelbarrows.

 

Copyright 2010 Ann Tudor   

www.anntudor.ca
http://scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com