Two years ago, as Gary and I finished clearing out Mom and Dad’s house in Connecticut, we set aside all kinds of mementos from their lives that we hoped would fit in the U-Box containers we’d rented.

One entire section of the garage was filled with gardening tools. Some I remembered clearly from 50-something years prior. Dad loved to garden. It relaxed him after a long day in the office. A hoe, a rake, or a trowel was a piece of his life that I hoped to bring home with us to Indiana.

I didn’t really expect to have room for his wheelbarrow.

For decades, Dad and his wheelbarrow hauled around untold hundreds of loads of mulch, dirt, and fertilizer. (“My son-in-law is a dairy farmer,” he’d wail to me over the phone every spring. “Think of all that free fertilizer … if only we lived closer!”)

I don’t know exactly when he acquired his blue wheelbarrow; it may have been in the 1970s. Or earlier.

Regardless, apparently even on photo day when Mom and Dad were engaged, he couldn’t resist her uncle’s ‘barrow:

In later years, Dad took his vegetable garden beyond tomatoes, green beans, and cucumbers. He planted an herb garden.

A few days ago, I ran across this handwritten list. I don’t know if this was a plan, results, or recommendation.

Either way, it’s nice to see his handwriting.

Before the moving crew closed and locked that last U-Box, they asked Gary if there was anything else. With a smile, my husband wheeled over the barrow. It fit perfectly.

As is the custom with these stories, I checked the library of poems Mom spent a lifetime writing. Sure enough:

All Bells

The old man with the wheelbarrow
follows the carolers
his red cap echoes theirs
and the gifts in the barrow
his own song

When from the woods
the village square
the harbor
all the bells are ringing in the snow
the carolers disperse
and the old man tucks in
his empty barrow in the barn
until the Spring
when it is filled afresh
with flowers

~ joan vayo January 6, 2005

The end of this story is a new beginning for Dad’s wheelbarrow. Middle-son John‘s dear wife, Aubrie, is a gardener. And she’s kind of old-fashioned. She warms to the thought of heritage furniture, old family recipes, and yellowing photographs.

John & Aubrie bought a charming house just about a year ago, and now have enough land to satisfy Aubrie’s itch to dig around in the soil.

I asked Aubrie what she’s planting this season (their kitchen glowed all winter with grow lights coaxing seedlings to get a head start on spring).

Here’s her list:

• Tomatoes
• Corn
• Pumpkins
• Peppers
• Eggplant
• Potatoes
• Strawberries
• Zucchini
• Cucumbers
• Rampicante (squash)
• Herbs
• Lettuces
• Radishes
• Turnips
• Onions
• Shallots
• … and Flowers

Gary and I are delighted that Aubrie is putting Dad’s wheelbarrow to good use again. I know he would have loved talking to her about all-things-gardening. And sampling the delicious results.

“All Bells” © 2005  Joan Vayo. All rights reserved.

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