Axel was determined to get the garage cleaned out, and I was thrilled. The messy garage was something that had weighed on me at different moments of my life the past year -- when Little L's school was closed, when I was on strike, when we found out we would be working until the end of June.... during all of it, I was thinking, and the garage, too!

As Axel went about moving bikes and balancing skis up in the rafters without the use of a ladder, I noticed that so much of what was littering the right half of the garage were pots. Plant pots with leftover dirt in them.

We emptied the dirt into a large yard bag and stacked the pots.

"I don't think we need all these," I said. But how would we get rid of a bunch of dirty pots?

And then I thought of what my friend Ellen had told me. She just puts stuff out back in her alley, and people take it!

"We can just put it out!" I told Axel. He was dubious.

"I don't think that people are used to doing that in our alley. I don't think anyone will take them."

"Well, how about out front?" Last fall we got a nice white basket for Little L's toys and a recycling bin for the office at a house halfway down the block. My mom got Little L a wagon for her dolls and a mountain bike for when she's older from one of her neighbors' lawns. My mother-in-law got Little L a cradle for her dolls in the alley. If they are able to acquire all these things for free, why couldn't we get rid of something too?

I made a sign and placed the stack of unwanted pots out front.

And then we waited.

Day 1:

Little L checked on them multiple times. "Mama, Mama, they are all still there!"

Day 2:

Put the pots back out (Axel had insisted bringing them in at night, though I'm not sure why - was he worried they would get stolen? Still there as I drove Little L to school. Still there when I went out for a run and definitely still there when I hobbled home ten minutes later.

After I got home with Little L, she said to me, "Wait, I need to check!" and scampered off into the front yard. She was really getting into this whole "no one took the pots, Mama!" thing.

"Mama!" Little L slammed the gate closed and skip-ran towards me. "The big red dish is gone."

"What?" Was her Papa's teasing wearing off on her? "No way," I said, hopeful, but not believing it.

We walked out front, and to my glee, the biggest pot - more of a rectangular mini-garden we'd used on the balcony at the condo, a red dish of sorts, I suppose you could call it - was gone.

"It's gone!" I started doing a little dance.

"They didn't take the bottom to the planter," I said. They'd left the large lid that could be set underneath the dish for drainage. "Also, they took our sign! I better make a new one."

"I"m gonna make a new one!" Little L exclaimed, getting into it. As I made a legible sign, she squeezed letters together onto a small piece of paper.

"What does that say?" I asked her. I didn't recognize the words, I had been expecting it to see FRE POTZ or maybe FRE DISHZ.

"If you want this sign take all the planters," she recited.

Brilliant! It was definitely more likely they would want her colorful sign than my mismatched planters. We walked outside to affix her sign and mine to the remaining pots. "The red dish is still gone, Mama!" She was right. I hadn't considered the possibility of someone returning it, but in the business of free-giveaways, nothing should be taken for granted.

I texted Ellen the good news. "Someone took one!"

"Faith! And patience!" she wrote back.

Day 3:

We didn't need to bring the pots back outside, because I had forgotten to take them in overnight. Luckily it hadn't rained; it was probably less likely that someone would take muddy pots than dirty pots. This was probably what Axel had recognized when this all started.

At preschool drop-off, Little L's teacher told me that she's been really into writing lately. "Yeah, like the sign you wrote for the planters we're trying to give away," I said to Little L.

"Oh, what planters?" Ms. A. sounded interested. "Are they like that one?" She gestured to a larger raised cedar planter box. "Uh, well, ours are more like large pots," I said. Or dishes. Planters just sounded fancier.

"Are you interested?" I tried to conceal my excitement.

"If no one takes them, why don't you show them to me?" she said. "It sounds like they have a very nice sign, so someone might take them."

I headed home feeling a little lighter - my patience was paying off. All of the planters remained. The red dish was still absent. I snapped a picture and composed an email to Ms. A. "There are 7 pots of various sizes that remain! If you want them we can bring them at pickup or tomorrow morning!" Maybe the exclamation marks were overkill, but I didn't want to throw them out, and I didn't have a use for them.

Despite checking my email several times, I didn't hear back from Ms. A. I headed out for to meet Silvie and her baby for a walk. When I returned, I came in through the back, not bothering to check on the pots. It wasn't such an urgent situation now that Ms. A. was my back-up plan. I hadn't offered them to Silvie - she had taken an errant potty seat off my hands today; I didn't want to push my luck.

"Did you see?" Axel, who was getting some leftovers out of the fridge, announced, right as I walked in the door.

"See what?"

"The pots!" he said.

I removed my running shoes and bounded to the window.

The pots were gone.

"A lawn crew was doing Robert's yard," Axel said. Our lawn crew - also known as us - had not been doing much to our yard lately. "They might have just moved them, since they were on the edge of his lawn."

I went out and investigated. No planters to be found.

"Or they might have just thrown them out," Axel said. But there are no garbage cans out front. "Or actually," Axel said. "Maybe they took them."

A lawn and gardening service? They certainly might have a use for seven pots. And what a compliment to the dishes - excuse me, planters - that professionals had wanted them!

Or maybe the same person who'd taken the red dish the previous day had returned for more. In any case, they were gone. We'd done it!

When Little L came home that day, we celebrated. I wrote Ms. A. an email telling her that the pots had been taken. "I bet Little L's sign enticed some eager flowerpot gardeners," she said.

Little L sometimes looks out the window and comments, "And now they're all gone still." She is keeping a watchful eye.

"See, Axel?" I said. "It did work. It just took a few days." It's like Ellen said... have faith! And patience.