The Tale of the Rhubarb

Many years ago, at least 13, my grandfather, (for he was alive back then) gave us the root of a Rhubarb plant. We lovingly and carefully carried it home and planted it in our new garden. The garden was impressive. It had high walls, fences to keep the deer out, and it was big for a family garden. Some people called it The Fortress.
Because we had moved from warmer parts, we had never had a rhubarb plant before, and so we anxiously awaited as the rhubarb plant grew. The first year we got rhubarb from the neighbors to eat since our plant was really too small to harvest, and theirs was very big. In the Fall when the garden was ready to be prepared for the winter, John pulled out the tiller and tilled up the whole garden. Great was our sorrow when we discovered that the rhubarb plant had been tilled up. I gave him a scolding and he promised that he would never do it again, but when spring came and it was time to till the garden again and he tilled up the rhubarb again. By luck we found the little rhubarb root in the clumps of tilled dirt and loving replanted it, this time on the edge of the garden where the tiller was not as likely to reach. The little rhubarb grew that summer but it was not very strong. We got rhubarb to eat from the neighbor’s garden, and hoped that next year the little rhubarb plant would grow big and sturdy. When the Fall came John got out the tiller again, to clean and prepare the garden for winter. I warned him sharply not to till up the rhubarb and I put rocks around the little rhubarb plant so that he would not make any mistakes. The garden had many rocks, as many gardens do. These rocks seemed to multiply and come from nowhere. It was the young men of our family who followed the tiller around and threw the rocks out of the garden each year. After the garden had been tilled and cleaned and prepared for winter, there was no rhubarb plant to be found anywhere. No one knew what had happened to it. It never grew again.
After many years, (and not so many years ago) we went to Grandpa’s house again. Grandfather and Grandmother had already passed away. Still growing in their garden was the rhubarb plant. Aunt Judy dug up a part of the root so we could bring it home and plant it in our garden again. It would not go in the Fortress Garden this time, for we lived in a different place, and the garden was much smaller, so small in fact that the tiller would not fit into it. The rhubarb grew in this new garden but did not like the climate very well. The next year we dug up the little rhubarb plant and took it back to the Fortress Garden. This time we planted it very, very close to the fence, so close that the tiller could not get it with out breaking up the fence, and the deer, if they like rhubarb, will be able to nibble some of the leaves through the fence. It grew into a little plant all summer. We were able to harvest a few very small rhubarb stalks, but mostly we ate rhubarb that came form the neighbor’s garden. In the Fall the tiller couldn’t get the little rhubarb plant. It slept all winter under the snow, and in the spring it was the first to show its head out of the cold moist ground.
What will become of the little rhubarb plant? This year it should grow to become big and strong and give us rhubarb stalks to make our favorite rhubarb raspberry pie.