by Sjaunna Garfinkel

Created on: June 02, 2008   Last Updated: June 10, 2008

Would you call a porcupine a pest? Well, I would have until I met Matilda.

Matilda, you see adopted me as her garden person. I had never been a garden person before and she taught me about the honor.

Here I am one fine morning, down on my hands and knees weeding and I catch a movement out of the corner of my eye. I turn, thinking it is one of my cats but instead I come face to face with a porcupine.

Okay, what do I do now? I mentally try to send her the message "nice porcupine" while I frantically rack my brain about how porcupines shoot their quills. Or do they? I can't remember but here I am face to face with a real life porcupine about 3 feet away.

Do I jump up and run? Do I make a loud noise? Will loud noises scare her into "shooting" me full of quills?

Why won't my brain cooperate and tell me what to do here? And she just keeps looking at me.

Well, jumping up is so not an option because my old knees don't jump. Lumber to my feet is more like it. Why oh why is she still looking at Me.?

As jumping up is out of the question, I remain here on my hands and knees trying to send her kind positive messages. Nice porcupine...your quills are just lovely. Surely you don't want to lose any. Keep them all, they look so good on you. Quite your style.

Why is she coming closer to me? Maybe my mind should just shut up, take my quills or her quills that is and just get this over with. Dear heavens, is she rabid?

No, I don't see any foaming at the mouth. Do rabid animals foam at the mouth or is that just in movies? Why does my brain have to desert me now?

And so I take a deep breath and just sit there waiting whatever. Maybe she is a boy. The way to man's heart is through his stomach or whatever... and so I lay a green bean on the ground between me and her. Very slowly she takes 2 steps forward and eats the green bean. Then very. slowly she turns around and I think "oh boy, am I going to get it now" and she walks away.

Well, walk is not what I would call it. She had this kind of rolling from side to side gait and I thought of the song Waltzing Matilda. So I decided to call her Matilda.

From that day forward, whenever I was in the garden she would appear and await her treat. She especially liked melon. She would come up to about 3 feet away from me and because I never wanted to startle her I would go about my gardening chores very slowly and deliberately.

After a week or so, this slow deliberate work in the garden took on Zen like qualities. I appreciated each plant more. I tended them more carefully and instead of hurrying through my garden chores I learned that by slowing down I more fully realized the pleasures that gardening gives.

Matilda always kept me company and I found myself talking to her. I could always tell her my problems and she was never judgmental. We had the greatest one sided conversations. She gave the greatest advice.

As summer turned to fall an even larger porcupine came to call. Matilda seemed really happy to see her pal. Because "he" was larger than she I sort of assumed He was a he and that made her a she. This is not applied science but it worked for me.

After a few days of "him" coming to call, I watched Matilda go off into the woods with him. I never saw her again but I will always remember the lessons she taught her garden person. Slow down and fully realize the joy in life.

Thank you Matilda!

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