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Health & Fitness

Greetings from Mendota

A brief introduction of Dyane Garvey, resident of Mendota and local writer. She writes about her battle to keep rabbits from eating her strawberries, a common experience of gardeners.

 

I’ve been asked to write and share a few of my ideas and things I’m doing. I used to write commentaries and essays for a Twin Cities Hmong newspaper when my children were still very young and I was home caring for them. I have a lot of varied interests including gardening, Hmong art, my children’s well-being, and cooking. Also, my life sometimes is challenging as I traipse between two cultures, Hmong and American.

 I grew up in the Midwest and have called the village of Mendota home for the last 14 years—still a newcomer in this very old Minnesota town and former fort settlement—where my husband and I are raising our two children. Currently, I’m learning about Hmong traditional farming and agricultural practices from my parents, who are in their late seventies and still farming. Along with this education, I’m trying to eat local foods and homegrown produce, two healthy behaviors I grew up with but have gotten away from practicing until concerns for health took me back to them. I’m also a mentor to young adult Hmong women transitioning from school to work and run a small consulting business with my husband.

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What drives me to write? I write because it’s a way for me to exchange ideas, share my stories and learn about the world. In this age of information and technology, there is a lot of communications happening on the internet but most of what is available is meant for a general audience. I hope my writing will present a strong community voice with local perspective and insight. I hope it will be fun to read also.

 Some of the “Local Voices” blog writers for the Mendota Heights Patch have specific interests and expertise to write about. I don’t know what my blog will end up being as I have many interests.

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 The mid-morning sun cast a glare across the laptop screen reflecting an image of my shirt and obscuring a half-written email. I got up to pull the curtain when movement outside caught my attention. A chubby little brownish-gray rabbit jumped from the lilac bushes, hopped toward me and stood on the edge of a garden bed beneath my window. He watched me in hopes I didn’t know he was on his way to eat my strawberry plants. His nose twitched to catch the sweet scent of the blooms carried on the breeze from the other side of the house.

 “Oh, no you won’t,” I said and I made like Mr. McGregor going after Peter Rabbit, putting on my garden clothes and running out the backdoor. I must put up the metal fence around the strawberries now, I thought to myself. I had been waiting for my husband to put it up since last summer after the rabbits ate all the newly planted strawberries. Only one survived to bloom again after the bitter cold winter and with the addition of six new strawberry plants I was determined to keep the rabbits from eating them this year.

 We have a long, steep driveway. A tiered retaining wall made from railroad ties holds up the house and yard on one side of the driveway, with garden beds on each tier of the wall. Years ago I removed all the flowers in the wall gardens grown by the previous homeowner and instead planted tomatoes and strawberries. This year, I added six new strawberries at the top end of the retaining wall, where it’s easiest for me and my children to reach in and pick the berries.

 I grabbed the roll of metal fencing which I had laid out for my husband next to the strawberries and began unfurling it. In no time the fence encircled my petite frame (I’m only 4’ 9”) and I was forced to climb out of it while trying not to fall off the wall. I positioned and staked the fence into the ground around the strawberries but realized the fence did not extend far enough. I fought the fence again, unfurling a couple more feet only to find myself caught in it like Peter Rabbit. When I finally freed myself, I created a u-shaped barrier with the opening facing the driveway. This would keep the rabbits away while I waited for my husband to fortify the fence.

 Feeling victorious, I climbed over the fence and a movement caught my eye again. I looked down the driveway into the street and there he was. “I knew what you were up to!” I poked my finger in the air at the rabbit. Looking defeated he hopped away into the neighbor’s yard and disappeared into a shrub. I wished my cat still roamed outside. She was a stray who walked into our house and stayed. She kept the moles and rabbits away from the yard in her glory days when she still had all four legs, but that’s another story!

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