Tribute to a Wheelbarrow

 

Today I would like to show you my tribute to a wheelbarrow, my workhorse through 17 years of sweat and construction as we dug and designed, mulched and watered to create our dream tropical garden. It carted rocks by the hundred, mulch, compost, prunings and weeds and helped us change an uninspiring expanse of rather scruffy lawn into the garden we love.

A small watercolour painting I did of my faithful wheelbarrow. Calligraphy is another art form I am working on and I love this quote I copied. I put them both together using Photo Shop.

It was not without some trauma. A few years ago the tyre burst. It couldn’t be repaired or a replacement found, but the barrow still had many more years of life left. So not being one to throw anything away Jack stuffed the tyre with old rags and tied it together with  rope and the barrow soldiered on. Various screws would come loose or fall out, but nothing Jack could not fix.

 

Finally the day came when the dreaded rust took over and ate out the wheel axle and the stuffed wheel fell out and could no longer be repaired. Time to be retired with plans to be put in a corner of the garden and filled with flowering annuals.

Time for a replacement barrow to be bought.

Have you ever looked at the price of new wheelbarrows? We were staggered. Then we noticed one for $59. Why was it so cheap? Because it was a kitset one. The Bunnings salesman warned us “It took me an hour to put together” he said “it is quite a challenge”.

Jack and son James looked at each other and scoffed. “I’m an expert at putting IKEA furniture together”, said James. “No worries” said Jack. “Put the jug on we’ll be up for a cuppa in 10 minutes”.

One hour and fifteen minutes later it was mission accomplished. Their opinion of the salesman had changed. “He did it in an hour AND on his own, what a hero” James said.

Today it has been pouring down with rain. Brisbane has had all Octobers average rainfall in a couple of days and the forecast is for rain all this week. I’m ecstatic as I have been waiting for decent rain. Now I can start planning, planting and redesigning corners of my garden.

And, of course I will now be recording it all in photos for a future post!!!

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Thank you to all you lovely people who read and responded to my first post. I spent many head-scratching and frustrated  (some would say wasted) hours getting it up and running and limping along.

Technology can be a huge challenge to the non computer savvy person. But I have managed to find and instal the “like” button. And I am trying another theme.

Do any of you have a suggestion for a theme you use and have found easy to navigate around? The previous themes I used on my other 2 blogs no longer seem to exist, at least I can’t find them.

I hope you have all had a restful weekend…