Frick and Frack: Women With A Barrel

I've had a few successes lately. I patched a hole in a wall, I've put in flowers in the garden so much so that a real estate agent came by and said my flowers in front had raised the price of our house. Spurred by yesterday's success of patching a much larger section of a wall, I decided to re-jig my potted plants.

You know those half wooden barrels? We had one in front of the house. I put a rhododendron in it this year, with white impatiens around the rim. The barrel bloomed pink and white. But I decided what I really wanted was to move the rhododendron to the back garden and grow a climbing rose in the front instead. I bought a second wooden barrel.

Well the rhododendron was already in the barrel so the climbing rose had to go in the new barrel, right? That required me to move the rhododendron barrel to the back garden so I can put the new barrel in its place in the front.

I slipped some small plastic wheels under the barrel, disturbing many worms and had to run away to shake off the heebie-jeebies. I wheeled the barrel along the concrete walk beside the house towards the back. A piece of the bottom fell off. Damn. If I could just get the barrel to the spot I was aiming for, a fallen bottom is okay. But no go. The concrete walk ended and I was on soil and grass. The wheels wouldn't budge. I moved the barrel off the wheels. More of the bottom fell off. Now the barrel sat bottomless in the middle of the driveway. If I lifted the barrel, the soil in it would fall out.

I stood back and surveyed the situation, pacing the side of the house. A neighbour came by to see what I was in such deep thought about. When I explained my situation, she said, No problem, we just need the barrel and soil to stay in tack long enough to move the thing 20 feet to the spot you want. We can do it!

Sure.

She rolled up her sleeves and we lifted the barrel. More soil fell out. Then she had the brilliant idea of rolling the barrel on its side. So we did. Soil tumbled out from both top and bottom of the barrel now. To prevent damage to the flowers, I took the rhododendron and impatiens out. We rolled the barrel on its side again. With little soil and no bottom to give the barrel shape, the barrel planks collapsed in a heap.

Now I had a huge pile of soil at the entrance to the backyard, a heap of unhinged wood, and a rhododendron and impatiens unearthed. What to do?

My neighbour said, I'm going home now. So she did.

Then she send over a slab of pie to make me feel better. And you know, it did.

This morning, it occurred to me that all I had to do was transplant the flowers to the new barrel and left the old one where it was. My task today: buy a new barrel to replace the collapsed one.