It seems that when the rain stops and the sun comes out in March, and the family feels the gentle 65 degree temperature, a strange transformation takes place. Yes, it is an emotional throwback to the pioneer days, when spring meant that you needed to get out there with the mules and plow your field, sow your wheat, and pray for it to grow.

In the old days, the farmer would inspect the plow and get the mules warmed up. We felt a corresponding need to get tools for our task and so did what any normal modern would under these circumstances. We went to Home Depot. I wanted a narrow shovel, to attack the stumps, a rake, to rake last fall’s leaves, and something to turn over compost. We inspected an Austrian-made pitchfork, which retailed at $35, but something about the idea of bringing this combination tool and weapon into a household with middle-school aged boys and their horseplay made us chose a mini-tine rake fork instead. We carried our loot home, and got down into digging and raking.

The following morning huge piles of dead leaves had been extracted, but not all was well. The cheap-!@@ rake we bought the day before was breaking, (Dean told me I should have known that it would, since it was plastic and all, though I pointed to the sticker that said 5 year warranty) and I thought we needed a wheelbarrow. We went back to Home Depot and demanded they take the defective rake back and they were very nice about that. They probably knew they’d come out ahead in the end, and they were right.

The feelling of being in Home Depot in the spring is something you just have to experience. All over are infant plants, berries, fruit trees, seeds, ornamentals, roses small and large.  The very air smells of hope, promise, and the future. Everything in the store seems destined to turn into something bigger.

The metal wheelbarrow which was cheapest ($45) had a ten dollar assembly fee attached. We thought we might buy the kit and stick the task of putting it all together on our 14 year old son, but they were out of kits. So we asked if they’d sell us a pre-assembled at the kit price, and yes, paydirt, they would. We walked out of the store feeling clever, despite the fact that, having picked up a couple more “needed” tools, we’d spent another hundred dollars.

There are days when you just can’t rein in your wheelbarrow, rake and shovel desires. In the afternoon, the entire family was in the garden, moving leaves, digging stumps and constructing a garden box. TThe temperature was perfect, the sun shone, and overall, the world seemed like a good place, where wheat, or tomato plants, would grow, a promising future was ahead, when we would use all these tools again and again and be grateful for this day when we had bought them.