Sunday, December 4, 2016

Simple Life

I don't have the source link for the art, but this was posted on Facebook by Ark Kazad, whom I've known over half my life.


The text is from Kelly Exeter, at this site: http://kellyexeter.com.au/manifesto-for-a-simple-life

The comment I left when that was first shared (and I linked this blog):
And there's a wheelbarrow. Wheelbarrow appreciation can make the world a more beautiful place, too, if every time you see a wheelbarrow you think of the history and elegance and the power it gives a single person to carry more than his or her own weight.

Friday, October 28, 2016

Tuesday, October 25, 2016

Wheelbarrow advice and analysis


This wheelbarrow is just like one Colleen sent a photo of the other day. I looked and thought I'd never seen one quite like that, and then that video popped up while I was looking for something entirely unrelated.

Link to the post with Colleen's neighbor's wheelbarrow:


Wheelbarrow Tower in Cle Elum



Poem (which is the voice-over, and is great) by Eric Johnson

Imagine the surprise to those passing by,
the quizzical looks, the wondering why.
What's that in the woods on the edge of Cle Elum?
Would anyone believe ya if you dared even tell 'em?

The wheelbarrow's a rickshaw for dirt and debris,
a long shot for glory and immortality.
But there in the trees among pine cones and sparrows,
is a sky scraping tower of rusty wheelbarrows.

There was no master plan when he first stacked dirt carriers,
imagination and gravity his only true barriers.
Does he rent them? Does he steal them? Is he on the straight and narrow?
Does his old dog Hunter beg, steal and wheel-barrow?

But he could only go so far without pushing his luck,
what the stacker really needed was a big fire truck.
And then just this morning, like a gift dropped from heaven,
came the big ladder truck from fire district seven.

Of all the great towers in all this great world,
we should remember and try to be mindful.
Spectacular feats of engineering and vision,
Babel, and Pisa, Eiffel.

But when they ask you to name the greatest of towers,
made by kings, czars or pharaohs,
Be sure to tell 'em,
'bout the one in Cle Elum,
Known simply as "Tower Wheelbarrows"

And when the stacking is done
and the stacker grows old,
there will be no sad goodbye.
He'll look up for a while then Stephen will smile,
and climb his wheelbarrow stairway to the sky.

-Eric Johnson

Sunday, October 23, 2016

Wednesday, October 19, 2016

"Fabulous old wheelbarrow"

New Hampshire, 2016

Colleen Prieto wrote: "Our elderly friend who lives in town lent us her fabulous old wheelbarrow so we could move woodchips from a pile in our front yard to the gardens out back. Thought you might like a photo :-)"

Friday, August 19, 2016

Gloucester Life Museum

The former "Folklife" museum in Gloucester, now Gloucester Life Museum, has this wheelbarrow as part of a WWII display about young women working on farms during the war.







Monday, July 25, 2016

Many, varied, waiting



"I took this photo at Camp Baker in Florence, Oregon." —Renee Cabatic

I looked it up. Camp Baker is a Boy Scout camp. Here's a video, in case someone here wants to hear the local accents and see where those wheelbarrows live. My guess (I could be wrong) is that the wheelbarrows are to help kids get their gear to the campsites, and back out after they strike tents and whatnot. The dune descent contest seven minutes in is fun.


Saturday, July 16, 2016

Pikachu with a Lego wheelbarrow

Marina Popova didn't have a Pokemon Go image, so she created a Pokemon LE-Go portrait.

Friday, July 15, 2016

Weedlebarrow

I asked Alex to try to find one in a wheelbarrow (during the first big week of Pokemon Go), and then I asked on Facebook to the world in general.

Within just a few hours, Alex succeeded!



Nancy Wooton named it "Weedlebarrow."

Pilar, New Mexico

Candid, hiding, near a beautiful cat.





Wednesday, July 13, 2016

New Hampshire, near a marsh

Colleen Prieto wrote:
We were in Seabrook, New Hampshire yesterday and came across this wheelbarrow (and its shadow :-)) parked at the side of a dirt road that extends out into a marsh where many, many swallows, House Sparrows, and some Purple Martins nest.
Thought of you and so grabbed a quick photo -


I have the urge to pose the wheelbarrow on that oriental rug near the fire hydrant, myself.

Monday, July 11, 2016

Chinese teapot

"Saw this teapot at the art gallery in Victoria, BC, and thought of you. It is from China. There was a tea pot exhibit."
—Jonathan Ford



Friday, July 8, 2016

Rotherfield, by a pigsty, behind a pub


Janine Davies wrote:
A wheelbarrow for you 😊

Photographed by a pigsty, which is in the garden of the Kings Arms pub, Rotherfield, East Sussex. The wheelbarrow has a single roll of turf in it and is very muddy. In the background...some pigs.

Sunday, June 19, 2016

Wheelbarrow bench

Clare Kirkpatrick saw this bench June 18, 2016, at the Royal Three Counties Show in Malvern.




The sign on the seat says "Wheelbarrow bench £395".

I googled "wheelbarrow bench." There are many images, though few as beautiful as the one above. Lots have normal rubber wheels and less elegant bench seats. For camping, though, it's a great idea—equipment could be moved from the automobile to the camping spot, and then the movers could sit and rest!

Wednesday, June 1, 2016

Professional miniature artsy art

"Cute and mini is our kind of gardening!"


Someone who works at Michaels arts and crafts store created and photographed that I think. On facebook, they asked for photos of other people's gnome gardens. Perhaps wheelbarrows will show up there, too.

Alicia Gonzalez-Lopez, who created the mini-me with a wheelbarrow, sent the image with this note:
A little wheelbarrow in a fairy garden. :) cute!
I think the LEGO wheelbarrow is tinier than this one. ;)

Tuesday, May 24, 2016

The only real thing?

Karen James captured this wheelbarrow at rest, at Harley Farms Goat Dairy in Pescadero, California, in May 2016.





I asked her if the wheelbarrow was the only real thing, and she wrote:
Well, it's a real barn with real hay and real goats--about 120 goats. I think they use the wheelbarrow to transport the feed from the storage silos they had nearby to inside the barn to a feeding trough for the goats.

So I'll classify it as a working wheelbarrow, on break.

Wednesday, May 4, 2016

Moving mountains

Laurie McPherson found this on a facebook collection called "Avantgardens", with the following text:
“The wo/man who moves a mountain
begins by carrying away small stones.”
+ Confucius, The Analects
Photo: Satori Gigie

Tuesday, May 3, 2016

Garden Spill art

Janine Davies wrote of this wheelbarrow in a front garden in East Molesey, Surrey, London, UK:

It's freshly placed and created, and being planted up as I write. I'll do an after picture for you when the plants are bigger. I like the design of it.



UPDATE, two months later and note from Janine:
This one is now overflowing with flowers. I sent you a photo a while back of it when it had been freshly placed and there was only soil in it. One red handle appears to be the only visible sign of the barrow now.

Tuesday, April 26, 2016

Don't choke on it

First wheelbarrow I've seen with a choking hazard warning!

From the Current Catalog, Colorado Springs, in the giftwrap accessories category:




Tuesday, April 19, 2016

Kirby and Keith

Our woodpile, 2016. Kirby Dodd with my plastic yard cart (two wheels, no steel but the axle, I think), and Keith Dodd with his steel and wooden-handled wheelbarrow.


I never noticed until I uploaded this that they're both from the same company, "TruTemper." The wheelbarrow, we've had for at least 15 years. We've replaced the tire (maybe the whole wheel). The yard cart is only a couple of years old. We've worn out two others, maybe different brands.

We have three little ramps in the yard, for the wheelbarrows. When I take the garden cart on them, I teip it over to one wheel. Maybe someday I'll bring photos of the ramps.

Sunday, April 17, 2016

Mention of wheel mount, in passing, 1874

Looking for a description I once saw of how to clad a wooden wheel in iron, I found this, in a book about automotive manufacturing in The Hub, Volume 15, page 49, published in New York in 1874. In discussing the attachment of wheels, they mention bearings on either side of the wheel, "as is the case with a common wheelbarrow."


Clicking this should get you to the book facsimile.

Friday, April 15, 2016

Crushed in Australia

Bob Collier, of Canberra, wrote:
My old wheelbarrow after it was crushed by the tail end of a branch that dropped from a huge gum tree we had in our front garden at the time; during the night, hours after I'd finished work for the day fortunately (the tree was subsequently removed).




Kentwell Tudor Wheelbarrows

Last year I put one photo, but today I noticed there were two wholly different contraptions!

So here is Adam Daniel and commentary with the wheelbarrow that has a deep container, and below is the one with a flat surface. Not sure, then if it's still technically a barrow. Still, nice details. Photos by Adam's mom, Julie.


Both have iron-clad wheels.

Thursday, April 14, 2016

Conan O'Brien, Buddhist Monastery

Conan O'Brien shoveling snow into a wheelbarrow, at a Buddhist monastery in Korea.



Click the photo to go to the video from which it was lifted.

Tuesday, April 12, 2016

Bush Fire Victim

Photo and notes from Annie Regan, in Australia:

This is what was left of our wheelbarrow (it had a green plastic tub) after the 2009 Black Saturday bush fires. http://www.blacksaturdaybushfires.com.au

I had moved the wheelbarrow out to the front of our property to fill up with leaf litter from under a huge gum tree, as part of our fire preparation. I'd done a few loads in the week leading up to the fires, and had left it there to do some more when I got a chance. It was sitting there when the fire went through (me removing more leaf litter wouldn't have made any difference, nothing could have stopped the fire at this stage). Our house is about 10m behind me when I took this photo - the house was untouched but the ground all around on either side was burnt like this. We had an oak tree to the south, and the fire approached from that direction. The oak tree was shrivelled and dry on the southern side, the shed next to the tree burnt down, and the fire split and went either side of the tree (and our house) and then met again in the paddock to the north. So we were extremely lucky (we weren't home, we'd evacuated a few hours earlier).

Annie Regan

Friday, April 1, 2016

Korean Litter

Before the dynasty of dictators... article with many photos, DailyMail.com, March 2013.

The photos are late 19th, early 20th century. I've shown the difference between a Chinese wheelbarrow and a European—with different origins, one replacing a beast of burden, and one with a wheel replacing the other person carring the other end of a barrow.

Below is something more like the Chinese barrow, and also like a litter with two bearers.

Wednesday, March 30, 2016

All blue, incidental



Lydia Koltai's photo of a beautiful child, with a blue wheelbarrow just being back there.

Monday, March 21, 2016

The World Famous Arrowbarrows


First, I love this photo. Rob Schnepp took it at Mount Edgcumbe, in Cornwall, while they were setting up. I asked for a larger image, and he sent it with these note:
The backdrop looked so good so I had to capture it with the Barrows.

I play the part of the Red Baron (or Red Barrow as he's now called).

In this particular show we started with our flags right up the top of the hill by the Manor House so it would look striking as we all walked down to the performance area. Aside from the weather (it was raining), I think we got the desired effect
The image links to a post on their site.

Here's the Red Barrow, downed:


If you're in the UK, they have five appearances scheduled between the end of April and early August: Arrow Barrows (righthand column has the schedule). There are other images there, as well.

A previous post in this blog: Synchronized Wheelbarrows in Cornwall



Tuesday, March 15, 2016

Wednesday, March 9, 2016

Peaceful, night-time wheelbarrow

Quiet and artsy.


Also from Spot Nixon, whose recent photo stirred up old storage. Glad I found this.
I think it's holding burro's tail and a glass float, but if I'm wrong, please leave a message!

Tuesday, March 8, 2016

Tulips, California

This is similar to the wheelbarrow Holly photographed in Española. I think maybe they were/are sold for landscaping or planters, because they're not very practical-looking. Rubber tires have been around plenty long. :-)

Spot Nixon sent this in late winter, 2016.

Tuesday, March 1, 2016

Same yard, different era

On the same property as the all-steel wheelbarrow, different era of wheelbarrow. It's being protective (or something) of another piece of equipment I don't recognize. Holly took the photos.

Monday, February 29, 2016

Rusty yard art, Lower San Pedro Rd.

Holly and an all-steel wheelbarrow, Española, New Mexico, and a portrait of the same wheelbarrow another day:





I wrote steel, but I suppose some of it is not so noble as steel. Iron, perhaps, the wheel and some other parts? Comments are welcome.

Those WORDS are in the way

My husband (who doesn't use facebook much) posted something with a wheelbarrow in it. If only those pesky words weren't blocking my view! :-)