Averyl

Three years ago, we created a pollinator garden with native plants I bought from Maine Audubon and local organic farms. I planted neonictinoid-free wildlflower seeds from American Meadows in raised beds my husband had built by hand in previous years when we grew tomatoes in them. When the bees, colorful insects, butterflies and hummingbirds showed up I was thrilled!

I even welcomed the slugs, because they are cute and need to eat, too. I was curious about them and learned that they are an important source of food for firefly larvae, and we are blessed to have fireflies adding glitz and glam to our darkness at night.

Yes, I was doing my part for the pollinators, and they benefit us and the world, and then Miss Gordie came into our lives and garden. I first saw her while gazing out my window.

She was eating the pollinator’s food! WHAT?! Not cute! All of my plans, money and time spent on those plants made them MINE I foolishly believed with a sense of entitlement! I was going to knock on the window to scare her off, but then, as I watched her and truly sensed that she was thrilled to find such an offering, I felt a sense of joy. I started to video her and felt the presence of the Holy Spirit. Her innocence was savage in the way it cut through my impulse for outrage.

This is the world God intended!

What could be more pure and sacred than God’s creation living without persecution for simply being alive and eating? God gave me an opportunity to provide a sanctuary.

But what about the pollinators? I was trying to do the right thing! What WAS the right thing?

I started making a mental list of all the benefits of pollinators vs groundhogs, until I realized what I was doing: I was trying to calculate the value of a life based upon WHAT HAVE YOU DONE FOR ME LATELY. Did Miss Gordie not have the same right to live as the pollinators? What “good” did she do? If all she did was eat the pretty things I spent time planting and nurturing that offered clean pollen to the many beneficial bugs and birds, did she really fit into the scheme of things as decided by humans?

I am so blessed that Miss Gordie would go on to teach me the sacredness of a vulnerable soul that wanted to be alive as much as I did. That life is worth protecting. That solutions in our backyard shouldn’t involve poisons, traps and killing but instead, co-existence. In my case, this wasn’t just about tolerance but welcoming a bonus blessing in our lives.

That first summer three years ago while she did eat many of the wildflowers and trampled over some of the others in the raised beds, she didn’t touch the rest of our garden including our native red cardinal flowers and great blue lobelia!

That winter she went into hibernation in her burrow underneath our shed. When she emerged the following spring she attracted a suitor I named Randy. He wagged his tail every time he looked at her. They chased and played together, although many times she would act fierce by hissing and send him on his way. Yet she sometimes seemed to wait for him for hours at a time, sitting and gazing at the woods. About two months later came six little babies!

Miss Gordie brought them over to our deck and seemingly showed them off to me. Although she pretended she was afraid of me it was moments like those that I knew she trusted me. Papa Randy seemed proud although he didn’t stick around too much longer after they were born.

Our cutleaf coneflower had really flourished the previous year, growing over six feet and full of late summer splendor. The squirrels loved to eat the flowers but because there were so many it wasn’t noticeable. That spring the shoots and young leaves were looking so vibrant. I was excited for another banner year.

But then I saw some leaves were gone. Baby food. I tried to create a barrier around them with various things I had laying around. I thought I did a great job with my thrifty Yankee ingenuity using a rake, and chairs turned on their sides backed up against the fence. For good measure I even put up a “guardian” vintage garden statue of a cranky looking rooster.

I looked out my window and down and…hey now! One of the babies got through my cobbled together defense system and was making divine dining of “MY” cone flowers. I would not win this, and this baby stole my heart just like her mother and father had. God knows what others will do to that sweet baby and siblings when they show up looking for a new home. Trapping and relocation usually brings suffering and death. (Imagine having spent months building your home only to be trapped and taken to a new place without the time or place to build your shelter before a Maine winter! Or doing it only to be relocated in the fall!)

Never did I think I’d grow tobacco in Maine, but our local organic farm sold nicotiana seedlings unappealing to mammals but a treat to pollinators with fragrant, stunning blooms. We bought two and put them in containers and sat them on those same rusty old chairs over the remnants of the coneflowers, out of reach of underage groundhogs, just in case.

The seedlings in our raised beds became an organic microgreen cafe for the community, and by the way they grazed, I thought for sure nothing would be left. But something more integral to my values was happening:

It is a blessing to be able to offer sanctuary to the underdogs of the world.

My garden is truly about creating space in a world that is less safe for wildlife every day and has never been kind to the likes of lovely Miss Gordie. Being able to show mercy is a divine gift and the rewards run deep. I felt a release from some of the burdens I carry unconsciously from my own past traumas when I was a helpless underdog during my childhood. I couldn’t change what was done to me but I could bring protection today. And in doing so I somehow mended a deep fracture.

Miss Gordie’s babies left after about a month and kindness flowered, literally. They still left behind hundreds of seedlings that grew into the mini meadows we wanted all along. I had overseeded to account for birds and chipmunks having their fair share, and it worked for this welcome guest, too!

Our red cardinal flowers and great blue lobelia remained untouched as did our newly planted milkweed plants. HOWEVER, we no longer plant any type of coneflowers!

The groundhogs left us an abundance of catchfly, baby blue eyes, poppies, baby’s breath, baby snapdragon, cornflower and rose mallow. They also didn’t eat any of our roses. Our mini meadows were so full that there was even enough to make a few charming bouquets!