GARDENING FOR THE HOME-BOUND HERMIT

View from the back side of my apartment

I have been sick for the last 2 weeks with an awful stomach bug and have pretty much planted myself in the recliner next to the picture window.  If I was up to getting out of the house and standing at the boundary fence that separates our property from the canal, I would be able to see the Albuquerque Country Club golf course, above.  Considering that I live in subsidized housing, it is ironic that my immediate neighbor is an exclusive club that provides a playground for the ultra rich.  But my view is of a dead yard that used to support plants and grass.

Just over the black wrought iron fence, is a canal that is full of life.  It is home to multitudes of fish, fowl, and creatures.  We have everything from giant carp to trout, as far as fish are concerned.  Giant plate-sized green turtles live in that brackish water, sunning themselves on pieces of concrete.  One has to walk to the fence and peer over and down to see any of this, however.

The turtles in the canal look very much like

this one.

The occasional black-crested night heron will visit, and twice I saw the very shy green heron.

Black crested night heron that I managed to snap

while he was fishing!

I happened to catch sight of a very elegant snowy egret once.  It was standing in the middle of the water so that it appeared to be floating, its legs were so long.  His stark white plumage reflected brilliantly in the rushing water that was fed by pipe from under the ground.

I have been lucky enough to have many opportunities to watch the neighborhood beavers and their babies, when dusk begins to settle and they come out to forage.

This is a nice size beaver, but the mama beaver

who has lived here for years was MUCH bigger

the last time I saw her.

We used to have quite a lot of ground squirrels, muskrats and ugly big sewer rats, but a diamond back water snake moved into the territory in the last couple of years and has grown HUGE on those little critters.  I can't imagine anything big enough to eat him, not even the hawks that make their nests in the cottonwoods on the golf course of the country club.  He'll probably be with us a long time.

This is a picture of a SMALL diamond back water

snake.  The one living in the canal behind my 

apartment complex is about 5 feet long.

That snake also eats the goose eggs, if they nest too close to the water.  A friend and I had to chase it off a nest last spring, where it had already eaten one egg and was tucking into a second.  It will sometimes try to snag a gosling from underneath when it is swimming, and I have witnessed the goose parents battling with it in an effort to save their baby.  Thanks be to God, the baby escaped.  I know that these snakes have to eat SOMETHING, but I wish they would stick to the sewer rats and leave the sweet goslings alone.

Goose parents and the 4 remaining goslings that the snake

didn't manage to catch.

The Albuquerque Country Club is constantly making efforts to eliminate the geese that we love so well.  For a while, they had a border collie chasing them off.  Sometimes they have tried to run them down with those silly golf carts.  I even caught two of their employees swinging at them with golf clubs!  Beating the geese is illegal, but when I yelled at them to stop, they said it was private property and I should just shut up.  I called the police.

one of my goosy friends

In stark contrast to the excesses of the wealthy on the other side of the ditch, the yards of the poor apartment dwellers are bare dirt, covered by a weed tarp on which is a meager layer of cement "crusher fines" that have been dyed to imitate the color of natural earth, or adobe.  Ever since the management ripped out the grass and trees and stopped watering the bushes until they just died of thirst, the asthma I had not seen since I was a small child came rampaging back into my life.  Dust, dirt and chemicals are the culprits.

When I moved into this apartment complex 10 years ago, there were beautiful giant trees growing out of the banks of the canal and shading our yards.  All along the wrought iron fence in front of those trees was a lovely little dirt walkway lit by charming white globes.  There was a peacock living on the property.  Many lovely bushes like lavender, rosemary and honeysuckle, were planted among bright spots of grass.  It was cool, inviting and natural.  Then someone got stingy.  The giant trees were ripped out and replaced with cement blocks and wire screen, leaving our apartment without windscreen or shade.  The charming globe lights were completely removed, leaving much of the property pitch black at night.  The dirt path was replaced with roughly manufactured gravel that gets in your shoes within seconds of stepping on it.  The sprinkler system was shut down, with the exception of a very small patch near the postal boxes.  Grass and bushes died quickly, then giant machines spent 3 months tearing up the back yard and turning it into a wasteland of chewed up concrete and rock.

Looking at my back yard, which is the view from my living room "picture" window, I feel bleak, hot and dry.  I long for the greenery I left behind in California, but I have no people there any more, and nothing to draw me back there, even if I could afford it.  I used to carry a quote from the Bible in my purse.  It was from Hosea and said something like, "I will draw her into the desert, and there I will speak to her heart."  I sometimes try to comfort myself by imagining that the Lord has called me here to speak to me in that way, but a yard full of crushed concrete does not a desert make.  The real desert is beautiful.  This is not.

If and when I have the funds to do some work on the "garden," I plan to install a meditation garden of sorts that will be an inspiration to everyone that walks by.  I have gotten permission to plant a couple of trees, but I have to buy the trees first, and then our gardener will install them, digging through the crusher fines and the weed screen to the dirt below.

A unique feature of my back yard is that the apartment building casts a long shadow over it, starting at about 12:30 in the afternoon, and completely shading it by about 3 or 4 O'Clock.  Any trees planted here have to be QUITE resilient, since it is very hot in the summer and very cold in the winter in this high-desert location, but they won't get continual sun.  The gardener is advising cypress evergreens, and tells me they are very hardy and can withstand the conditions.

These Italian Cypress will grow tall and thin, staying within the bounds of the garden, with occasional pruning by the gardeners.  Between these two cypress, my dream is to install a grotto, within which I will place a large statue of our Blessed Virgin Mother.  Of course, I will have to anchor it to something REALLY heavy, otherwise someone will walk off with it.  One would not imagine that a religious person would STEAL a religious statue, but stranger things happen here in New Mexico.  Thieves and robbers, their bodies emblazoned with full color images of our Blessed Mother of Guadalupe, apparently find no disharmony between the religious symbolism they wear on their bodies and the regular breaking of nearly every commandment our Lord holds dear.  Then there are the homeless people that live in the Bosque, underneath the trees, just a few yards from our apartment complex.  A police officer told me once that there are 200 people living there.

The Bosque near my apartment complex

In the Bosque there are  a mix of people, but many of them are wanted by the law, mostly for drug crimes.  Some are homeless who don't want to be limited by the rules and inconveniences of the shelters.  Several have told me that their belongings are regularly stolen while staying in the shelters.  Others just want the freedom to smoke pot, drink, and do their drugs in peace.  A sizable number are outdoor enthusiasts that will not trade the beauty of the natural environment for the deeply depressing institutional environment of a homeless shelter.  They remind me of the hobos that rode the rails during the big depression in the early years of the 20th century.

Denizens of the Bosque regularly move through the apartment grounds late at night, stealing anything that will be useful, such as patio furniture and cushions.  A little statue of a fairy angel was once stolen during one of these midnight raids.  Maybe the camp site needed a mascot.  I really miss that little statue, as it added a bit of whimsy to the garden.  Clearly, though, whatever improvements I do make have to be too large to cart away and of no use to the Bosque gangs.

I particularly love this statue. I have no idea how really big it is, nor how much it would cost, but this is exactly what I have in mind for my grotto between the trees.  I imagine sitting in front of it during a cool evening, cup of tea in hand, meditating on the Lord, and perhaps doing a rosary or two.

It is no coincidence that religious institutions are typically very beautiful.  God is the ultimate beauty, and whatever beauty we find here on earth comes from Him and reminds us of Him at the same time.  Beauty, especially the natural beauty of flora and fauna, speak to my soul and help to order it into harmony with the Lord.  In it, I find the type of tranquility that predisposes me to feeling His presence and hearing his voice.  Sometimes I think that this sensitivity and need for the beauty of nature is peculiar to artists, but I suspect that there are gifts here for everyone.  Since my garden is on display for all my neighbors to see, I want to inspire others to feel what I feel and stretch their hands and hearts toward the Lord.

When I was a young working woman, my apartment was rather spare and utilitarian.  My apartment was little more than a pit stop.  With 9 hours at work, plus 2 hours of commuting each day, there wasn't much of an opportunity or need to feather my nest.

Nowadays, I have to seek ALL of my stimulation and activity within the four walls of my apartment because arthritis has settled into all my old injuries and I now have mobility problems.  Developing the garden expands my usable living space and gives me an opportunity to get out of the house on a regular basis without actually having to get in the car and go somewhere.  I have nowhere to go, other than church, and if there was somewhere to go, I couldn't afford it anyway.

Scientists understand that all creatures, including us humans, have a hard-wired need for stimulation.  Even animals caged in a zoo, though given really nice enclosures that cater to their physical needs, also require natural elements (such as what I am craving now), as well as activities that challenge their minds.  Zookeepers in the western world do what they can to provide these activities by hiding treats in what they call "enrichment balls" and hiding meals in the enclosure, so that their hunting instincts can be aroused and satisfied.  It would be a sad bear who was relegated to a cage for all its life.

What many do not realize is that, while calories, clothing and a roof over one's head are enough to keep us barely alive, in the strictest meaning of the word, there is no life in that kind of life.  Beauty is necessary.  Connection with other living things; plants, animals and people, are necessary.  Mental stimulation provided by hobbies and crafts are necessary.  Culture is necessary.  Most important of all, connection with God, the ground of our very being, is essential.  Many people ignore these needs when contemplating what to do about the poor.

As a disabled and mostly home-bound person, what I feel most keenly is alienation from what is most natural.  Aside from the dearth of people in my life with whom I can commune face-to-face, I miss my service dog.  I miss greenery, and walking out into the garden in the late afternoon to water and prune, pick at the weeds and breathe in the damp earth and plant fragrances.  I need these things.  We all do, to some degree or another.  Replacing the service dog whose companionship and protection are sorely needed, will be extremely expensive, since I have to have a hypoallergenic dog.  In the meantime, I have a cat that a friend gave me as a kitten 11 years ago, who is dying of kidney disease and whose care and prescription food is bankrupting me.

I have been sick with a stomach virus for 2 weeks now, a portion of which I spent in the emergency room and at the doctor's office, it was so severe.  The rest of the time, I have been sitting in my recliner next to the picture window and gazing out onto the bare dirt of my back yard, wishing I could do something about it.

To my regret, I am unable to live like Mother Teresa of Calcutta who, along with her nuns, endured the conditions of the poorest of the poor.

This kind of asceticism is beyond my physical capacity to endure.  I suspect that the knowledge that one is doing something holy and pure, having the support of one's sisters and an organization, go a long way in helping the sisters deal with this sort of life in the emotional and psychological sense.  My chronic illnesses, pains, isolation and relative poverty are enough asceticism for me, and I suspect that the Lord does not expect more.  He knows I am not able.

No, I am an ordinary sort of person, trying my best to pray continually and to follow Jesus in all things, enlisting the help of Mary and the other saints and the angels for their assistance and intercession, sitting here at my picture window, looking out over my dead yard and the lush playground of the rich beyond it.

Silver Rose Parnell
(c) 2015