Twin Stroller

My heart twinged yesterday when I found this in the back of Von's pickup truck along with my window boxes.  It too was labeled junk.  It's laid in the rafters of the garage for at least fifty years, and now it's being cast out.

I couldn't help myself as I pulled it from the pile and unfolded it, and locked the wheels into place.  The handle telescoped to just the right height as I pushed it across our backyard.  I debated whether to clean it up as I ran to get my camera.  It's still in perfect condition.  The fabric is still bright blue underneath the dirt, and the little wooden beads are still painted red, blue and yellow.  All the wheels still work and there is no rust on the metal frame.

My Mother in law used to push her babies in this stroller.  Many years ago, these little yellow seats used to hold my husband and his twin brother.  Their little chubby hands used to twirl those painted beads as she pushed them around.  It's amazing how things change ... and how time changes things. Fifty years ago was a long time ago, but not so long ago in one's mind.

I can just imgaine that at one time she parked them in this stroller right here in my yard, in this same spot, in front of the garden shed while she chatted and worked in the garden with her Mother-in-law. 

I can just imagine how lucky I would have been if my Mother-in-law was here when my babies were in their stroller, and how wonderful it would have been to have chatted with her in her garden.

For now, I kept the stroller.  I found it a new home  .... in the little garden shed that also has seen better days.  I wonder if years down the road if my Daughter-in-laws will be as sentimental as I am ... and will they keep my treasures from many years past.

Treasures of the Heart

This morning my spouse got a wild hair up his butt and decided to work on cleaning up the farm ... such as moving my beloved window boxes down to a burn pile, along with anything else that screamed the word JUNK to him. 

When I wildly ran out the door flailing my arms and yelling, "No! No!  Not my window boxes .... ", he just kept on driving!  Of course when I ran after him in an attempt to save my treasures, it dawned on me that I was barefooted and was running on gravel.  Not just just any gravel ... but rained on gravel that was mixed with barn mud.  Defeated, I hobbled back to the house and began wipe the cow poop from between my toes.

I loved those window boxes.  Granted, I only planted flowers in them the first year I put them up, about five years ago.  I had found the pattern for them on page forty-four, in a magazine that Von's Dad had given me a few years before .... and they looked so beautiful in the pictures, that I just had to have them.  I had them made and painted them with love ... and hired the neighbor man to put them up and I planted the most beautiful Petunia's in them. 

Of course, I didn't have a green thumb, and futhermore, I had even less time to water and prune and take care of flowers.  My excuse was that I had triplet babies, but the next year I would.  It was my dream ... I had visioned it while thumbing through that old magazine.

My window boxes were taken down a couple of months ago when we recontructed our kitchen, after I had made the executive decision to take out a wall of windows.  They were laid to rest on the ground next to our house by the Contractor .... and that's where they've been ever since.


The two sets of double windows that were directly above my beautiful window boxes are now gone ... and TODAY Von decided to tell me that he hadn't wanted those windows removed.  Well ... now's a fine time to tell me Lucille. 
 
I had to peek out the window to see want he was doing with my boxes ... and I watched him gently lay each one down, side by side on the ground.  He knows that later this evening I'll walk down the path to the old barn, and I'll dump the old dirt out, and carry my boxes back to where I have my other treasures that I've come up with since I've moved to this farm.
 
He knows that I'm a dreamer ... and I love magazines and pictures and have visions.  He knows that keeps me happy and keeps me here, and he knows that I'll always be that way ... and he knows that forty years from now, my window boxes will still be in that old barn along with all my other treasures of the Heart.