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I Had A Plan
We’ve lived here one year. This time last summer I was ripping out vines – all kinds, green briar, English, honeysuckle, and poison ivy; all day, every day, all summer, arms covered in poison ivy. My goal was to have the last 17 feet of our property, which had been fenced off and abandoned, reunited with our yard, fence moved back, and voila’ – new garden space! One corner has a block cut out, because a neighbor, within the last 20 years, built a metal shed on our property. The current neighbor inherited it. I told them they needn’t remove it. I only asked that when they move (they’re renters) they let me know, so it can be moved before the next folks get used to it. I thought that was neighborly of me.
So, I have an unusual, L-shaped fence configuration. One side faces our cottage which is where I’ve made a museum garden. Our fence along their metal shed is the backdrop of my prayer garden. Here was that great plan: magnolia shades the entire area; add a white wicker seat brought from the mountains. Plant ferns and other shade lovers with Biblical names, hang some meditation-type things on the fence, I’d enjoy the quiet for morning or evening meditation, read, pray Rosary, and listen to God. What a great plan! I worked all summer like a crazy person to get it done by fall planting. And I did. And it’s beautiful.
Until it wasn’t. The neighbor, whom I did not evict from his shed, has made the entire area, the prayer garden and museum garden, impossible to use. Even when the music isn’t blaring from his shed, I can’t linger there for more than a few minutes, barely long enough to do maintenance. The area around the shed was their dog run. They don’t clean up after the dogs. The flies were intolerable. (I saw on face book how to hang Ziplock baggies filled with water to keep flies away. I’m happy to report that actually does work.) But what to do about the smell? I told them how bad the odor was. I explained about the Pilgrimage last April; 500 people walking next to that fence. Would they please clean it up before the weekend? They didn’t. My guests hurried through the museum garden, where I hoped the history lovers would linger. One man remarked, “It smells like a barnyard back here!” Instead of cleaning it up, which might have taken 10 minutes, they fenced in a smaller area next to the shed, on their own property, leaving all the enclosed mess where it was. And no, they still don’t clean it up, and yes, the new area smells terrible, too, and no, I haven’t yet sat in my gardens.
God, it seems, had a different plan. Instead of sitting and praying, I pray on the move, for the neighbors, patience, and tolerance. I dump my annoyance and anger on the moss as I pass through the museum and prayer gardens, quickly. I pray for their dogs penned up in excrement, and for them. God’s plan is always the better plan.