Rock Gardens, Wheel Barrows and Flat Tires

The stories in this column are true. Averett lives a dull life in rural Southside Virginia with his wife Management, two children and a rotating assortment of goats, dogs, cats, snakes and other local fauna.

In our list of high priorities for our home and yard improvements is our back yard. To me high priority means within a five-year time frame. For Management, high priority means today.  In any case, it has been well over five years since we started talking about doing something. Fortunately for me, no plan has been developed, just a vague “we need to do something.” Doing something is easy. Doing something specific is usually harder.

Well, Sunday afternoon, in a flash of brilliance, genius or stupidity, I had a vision of the back yard with paths, terraces, bushes and a patio. As always when I have one of those odd flashes, I jumped into the project. By mid-afternoon I had moved my entire inventory of rocks and had a design laid out. Management approved the plan.

By this point my genius had faded, as had my enthusiasm. Unfortunately for me, we now have a specific plan listed as high priority. Step one is to kill the patches of green stuff most people call lawn. Step two is locating, loading, moving, unloading and stacking about ten truckloads of rocks, and not just any rocks. Each rock must be selected for size, texture, color, shape, character and personality.

These rocks must be native Southside rocks, not some imported variety that can be purchased at the local building supply. This means I am once again searching for old foundations, chimneys and walls.

In order to move all of these rocks, the first in a long series of sequences, is to get a wheelbarrow out of the barn. The second is to fix the flat tire on it. If you have a wheelbarrow you already know that the proper way to use one is to get it and leave it in the barn. No one really uses one. They sit in the barn or shed until you have a use for them. Then when that occurs they have a flat tire. Wheelbarrows always have a flat tire. That is why they are called wheelbarrows instead of tire-barrows.

I happened to have seven of them in inventory; three with broken handles, two with rusted out bottoms and all seven with flat tires. No one wears out a wheelbarrow. The ones that rust out were left in the yard and the ones with broken handles were stepped on or backed over. I have a theory that the flats are deliberate and intentional. You can walk past one for years and everything is fine. Then when you realize you need one they somehow know your intentions. “Here he comes; he’s going to try to move me-sssssssssssssss.”

Before you jump to the silly conclusion that anyone with seven wheelbarrows must have moved a lot of stuff with them you must remember my favorite price for anything is zero dollars and zero cents. All seven were acquired at that price and I have never used any of them.

Anyway, I patched a tire and was getting ready to reinstall it when I realized a two-wheeler was easier to use and it would help me determine if it is the tires or the wheelbarrow that is responsible for the flats. If the next time I attempt to use it both tires are flat, it is the tires; if only one is flat, it is the barrow.

I spent several hours disassembling and reassembling. In the process I salvaged the parts needed by three of my friends to repair theirs. Not that I actually expect them to repair theirs. They will put the parts in their broken wheelbarrows until they need to move something. Then they will repair them and fix the flat tire.

I am well aware that I could have purchased a new one for less than I spent in time and effort but not at my favorite price.