by Victoria Sullivan

Created on: February 18, 2009   Last Updated: March 01, 2009

Several years ago I moved to the city. This was a big adjustment for me because I had always lived in the country and was very much a country girl. The city was convenient to my job and my boyfriend at the time (now my husband) and the neighborhood was pretty nice. The homes were a combination of single family and two or three tenements. Each house had a little bit of land, including the two-family that housed my apartment. I decided to use my piece of land to make a garden, to bring a bit of the country to my new home. Also, because it seems like you need a reason to be outside in the city. In the country people sit on their porch or in their yard for no reason at all, just to enjoy the outdoors. A person hanging around their yard in the city without a purpose looks very suspicious.

So, my excuse for being outside was my garden. I started with easy things like beans, cucumbers, summer squash and tomatoes. For some reason I thought that corn would be a good idea, which of course it wasn't. Corn needs a good deal of room to grow and this little garden was no more than ten feet squared.

I looked forward to coming home each night and toiling in my piece of land, spending time outside weeding and watering. There is something very calming about watering a garden - it can't be rushed. It's one thing in our crazy go, go, go world that allows you to stand still and quiet while being useful. I would often see the most amazing things while watering my little garden: Blue Jays, chipmunks scurrying about, squirrels playing tag up in the trees, the neighborhood kids outside playing; it would even provide me the occasion to speak with my neighbors. I loved my garden and the excitement of seeing my sprouts pop up or the green beginnings of my tomatoes. It was wonderful.

One evening I came home from work as usual and began tending to my vegetables. I unwound the hose, turned it on and began the process of gently watering my garden when something scurried away from the water from my hose and into the small row of trees that separated my yard from the one next door. I immediately released the lever on the sprayer, dropped the hose and tried to follow whatever it was.

The land behind my garden was overgrown with seedlings, tall grass and vines. Some of the Elm and Maple tree branches hung very low, providing a deceptive degree of privacy between me and my neighbors. (During the winter months, however, it is glaringly clear how close together the houses really are.) As I trudged

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