Garden Paths

In May of 2011, Sister Jann McClary and her husband Tariq moved from the Washington DC metropolitan area to establish a new home in the mountains of Colorado, building it from the ground up as part of their plan to become free of the spiritual and physical stress of modern urban life. Sister Jann is documenting her experiences for the Muslim Link. See her earlier installments at www.muslimlinkpaper.com by searching for Running for the Hills. Make sure you select "Exact Phrase" in the search options.  --TML

So. Here we are. Again. In my garden. It's that special time when this alleged gardener has suddenly awoken from a winter's hibernation to begin frantically, maniacally getting her garden in order to host spring plantings. But guess who got there first? Voles. Moles. Groundhogs. Prairie dogs. Pack rats. Mice. I don't know! Whatever names these furry little digging machines are known by, they've spent the winter tunneling throughout my garden and walkways! Least they could have done would've been to do some of that digging above ground and maybe cleared some walkways for me through the snow. Inconsiderate little varmints.ts.

But that's okay. I've got plans to fortify my pathways. The garden beds will take some extra effort; metal screens at the bases to deter those critters intent on sampling my produce before I do. I've got some mesh from an old RV screen door which I intend to use, along with some du'ah to protect the garden. Then I gotta figure out where they're coming in. Rodents are sneaky little dudes. Remember when Iblis (lanatallah) tells Allah 'azza wa jal in Surat-al A'raaf, ayat 17: "Then I will come to them from before them and behind them, from their right and from their left, and you will not find most of them as thankful ones."? Yeah, rodents are like that, too. You never know where they'll come in from so you have to circumvent, lay siege, booby-trap, flush 'em out, and otherwise do what ya gotta do to keep them from poking holes in what you're trying to cultivate.

Yeah, the shayaateen are like that. A shaytaan, like a little digger, will rarely confront you head-on. It hides where you can't see or hear it. Then it covertly infiltrates your pathway, leaving little craters, holes or piles of mess in your deen to make you stumble over, seriously hobbling your efforts to grow your eman. So I'm working on my paths, gathering up and putting into place the big rocks and then filling in between with stones and the ubiquitous mud. My garden's being safeguarded with solid, hard ground. Take that, you devilish diggers!

While all this may thwart the underground threat, there's still another menace to my paths: Rain. Even though we live in the dry southwest, each spring we get an almost daily deluge of it, usually right around dhuhr time. Oftentimes you hear people whining, "But we neeed the moisture!", and we do, because it helps dampen the dry grasses prevalent in these part that are a source of local wild fires every year. And these same folks gripe and grumble when their dirt roads have turned into what amounts to a swamp. All that rain day after day produces rivulets that swell drop by drop into cascades that have scoured my remaining garden paths into a sorry state of sloppy soil. Kind of reminds me of the incident during the lifetime of Rasulullah (sallallahu alaihi wa sallam), narrated by Anas bin Malik (radiallahu anhu) when there was drought, and while he was giving the jumu'ah khutbah a man stood up and asked him to invoke Allah subhana wa t'ala for rain. So he did, and it rained and rained all the way to the next jumu'ah, so much so that a man stood up and asked Rasulullah (sallallahu alaihi wa sallam) to invoke Allah to stop the rain. So he did, saying, "O Allah, round about us and not on us." Because I don't have Rasulullah's (sallallahu alaihi wa sallam) caliber of du'ah, the rocks should keep the soil from washing away, bi'idhnillah.

Figuring out where best to make your path and maintain it seems easier than it actually is. There's constant vigilance, repair, adjustments and additions to keep it smooth and solid, to keep it direct and not meandering off here or there: To have it take you exactly where you want to go. Has a rock shifted out of place? Whack it back down with your mallet. Has some fill-in stone gotten loose enough for infiltrators to get through? Better throw some more mud in there and let it harden. You have to make your pathway with whatever tools and materials you have available. Got as hand shovel? Check. Got a mallet? Check. Got Rocks? Check. Got du'aat and tawakkul? Check. Amin, check.