The Gardeners Anonymous Blog

“This is my friend who was bitten by a rattlesnake.”

Northerern Pacific Rattlesnake found a hundred feet from where I was bitten.

This is how I am introduced to people, one year later.

I was contemplating a title for this article. My girlfriend came up with “The Girl Who Stepped on a Rattlesnake.” We nixed it because, in her words, “It makes you sound too stupid.” So I went with our second choice.

For my snakebite anniversary I decided to go back to the scene of the crime and do what I was so rudely interrupted doing last year.

lupin

That was—taking a picture of wild lupins in the exact spot where, while I was adjusting my camera lens, I stepped on a Northern Pacific rattlesnake. This time, of course I would be oh-so-much-more-careful and watch where I place my giant size 9 ½ gunboats. 

I brought my dog along. My dog was also bitten by a rattlesnake the year before I was. She was also with me the day of my snakebite. I went to my girlfriend Jacqueline’s house at the trailhead: She’s the same friend who called 9-1-1. She came along with her dog. 

The day was very much like the day that I was bitten, same type of weather, same time of day. We walked and talked about the day I was bitten and how nervous I sometimes feel and how silly it is to be nervous because we both know that I am a member of an elite club. I mean, you are more likely to be struck by lightning than bitten by a venomous snake. 

Besides, I’m much more careful now. It is about this point that Jacqueline puts her hand on my arm. I stop in my tracks. She points at the ground I have almost stepped on a small snake with brown markings laying across the trail—I freeze.

Honor System

My friends and I had a “girls weekend” a couple of weeks ago.

It was all that and more. There was eating and drinking and shopping and spa-ing. We ran along the beach every morning.

We stayed at my friend’s parent’s house, a beautiful estate in Montecito. When it came time to leave, I wanted to give them a gift. Most people give cut flowers but I like to give live plants because after a week or so the plant will still look beautiful.

Throwing out dead flowers depresses me, so I always put it off, even if the flowers are gone and all the decaying petals are lying on the table around a vase full of decaying stems, they just sit there, until my husband says something like, “Honey? Do you want me to take those flowers outside for you?”

My girlfriend kept insisting that her parents were just like she was when it came to keeping plants alive. Which meant that the plants would keel over as soon as I left. I kept insisting that even if the plant did succumb to some sort of plant torture, live flowers would stay alive longer than a bouquet of cut flowers purchased for the same amount of money.

Trust me. I’m cheap. I know these things. This seemed to strike a chord with her, so she drove me to the local nursery, which wasn’t open because it was Sunday. Then she took me to another local nursery, which looked even better, until I noticed that it too was closed.

What kind of nursery closes on Sunday? The answer is the kind of nursery owned by people who don’t need to work on Sundays, the kind of people who already have a lot of money, the kind of people who live in Montecito.

We pulled into the parking lot to turn around and I noticed that all the gates to the nursery were opened and I began to question the fact that it was indeed closed. I got out of my friend’s van and walked toward the entrance. It was wide open. I wanted to run in slow motion towards the nursery entrance like long separated lovers run towards each other in romantic movies but my girlfriends had gotten out of the van and were following me in.


The inside gate was open also. There were hundreds of wonderful and exotic plants in beautiful pots. There were fountains trickling with water. There were wind chimes and garden sculptures. The only things missing were the nursery employees. The entrance to the small nursery’s office was the only door that was closed and locked. All the merchandise was out and exposed and there for the taking.

Now I’m cheap, but I’m not a thief. O.K., I did think about it.


My friend was driving a van after all. All we would have had to do was back up the van, load it up, and drive home. Simple as taking a bottle of pear Ripple from a 7/11—not that I would know what that was like.


I perused up and down the narrow pathways of the small tidy nursery. I wouldn’t even have to stick anything under my shirt I could pick it up and walk out the gaping gateway to the parking lot.

Finally my girlfriends peeled my white-knuckled fingers off a yellow cymbidium, and escorted me back to the idling van.

We drove away from the nursery without so much as a tulip, my face pressed up against the glass watching the little nursery get smaller and smaller, a tear rolling down my cheek.

At Last, My Six-Year Driveway

There’s this weird thing called money, and this other weird thing called a recession.

Added together, they equal The Six-Year Driveway.


What do I mean by The Six-Year Driveway? Six years is how long it has taken my husband and me to actually complete our 4,200 square-foot driveway.


My dreams of boys shooting hoops or riding skateboards or learning to ride bikes have yet to be realized.

Would my children rather play Nintendo? Would they rather play Dungeons and Dragons? Would they rather sing and dance in musical theater?

O.K. Maybe so.

But I’ll just blame it on the driveway. It is the driveway’s fault that my kids never learned to ride bikes. It’s our driveway’s fault they never learned to “shoot hoops” I believe that is the correct terminology. They never learned driveway hockey. They never learned to be proficient at skateboarding, scootering, rip-sticking, roller-blading, roller-skating, or doing anything with wheels.

Six years ago, we were completing the drainage and septic system for our house and our yard. It was just to disturbing to watch water bubbling up in the garden surrounding the old septic tank each time we flushed the toilet.

During the septic project, we removed part of the old asphalt driveway. My bright idea was to remove the rest of the asphalt and replace it with base rock to get it ready for the brand-new Paver Driveway I was going to install.

Then I priced a new Paver Driveway.

OMG, a 4,200 square-foot driveway is not cheap. It turned out to be way too expensive, around $19,000 just for the paver bricks.

If you figured the installation plus other materials, it totaled $9-$13 per square ft. Where was I going to get $50,000?

I had no sick or dying relatives, at least none that liked me.

My mind turned back to the chunks of discarded asphalt. I was wondering if I could put it back together, like a mosaic—only in shades of black—or a giant black jigsaw puzzle.

I’m good with puzzles. I could figure out how it all had fit together and then I could sort of fill in the cracks with gravel. Better yet, I could fill the cracks with dirt and grass seeds. It could become a sort of green garden art quilt. A black quilt with “green” stitching, if you will. I finally gave up on the demented quilt idea and accepted the fact that I no longer had a driveway.

But I still had the dream of: A Driveway.

In the days after The Old Driveway was removed, I came to realize how much I missed walking around outside barefoot. Yup, tip toeing across base rock isn’t quite the same.

A couple of years ago I was skimming through Craigslist (one of my many, let's say, frugal personal habits).

Lo and behold, in the “Farm and Garden” section was an ad for approximately 3800 square feet of tumbled quarry stone pavers—exactly the ones I was looking for. The gentleman selling the pavers wanted about $1 per square foot. Yahoo. My husband hired a truck to haul them (they were already wrapped and on pallets). We found out later that the actual quantity was close to 4200 square feet—the exact size of our driveway.

We had them shipped to our house.

And that is where they sat for two years, until we saved enough money to finally put them in.

I can finally run barefoot over my Six-Year Driveway.



 

Elaine!...Elaine!...Don't Run Out of Pavers!

 


Almost to the church

It feels like that scene in The Graduate where Benjamin’s trying to stop Elaine from getting married, so he gets in his Alfa Spyder and drives toward the church.

He’s almost there and—the Alpha starts to run out of gas—and the music starts to go slower and slower—and Benjamin jumps out of the Alpha—and starts to run down the street—and he’s running—and sweating—and sweating—and running.

I’m in that running and sweating stage.

Only I’m running—and now I’m in one of those dreams—those dreams where you’re trying to run away—from some monster—and you feet won’t move—or your feet move—but you can’t get anywhere—and the monster is right on top of you—and you can’t get away—and right before he eats you—you wake up.

Only I can’t wake up because I’m awake and staring at my driveway that is 80 percent done with the words of my contractor ringing in my ear.

The words he has spoken to me so many times:

“Of course we have enough pavers.”

Fail

Dirty Doggy Driveway Dishevelment: Day 9

Two weeks ago, my landscaping contractor told me that if
I went ahead with my driveway paver stones project; he could have it done by Christmas.

Knowing that we were headed for nasty weather, I doubted that the driveway would really be finished. But there was just something so tempting about having a finished driveway for Christmas.

It’s going to be dumping buckets of rain on Christmas day but the thought of looking out of my warm dry house—filled with the aroma of wet dog—and seeing that driveway I’ve waited six years for.

So I gave the O.K. to the project, and now my contractor is on a mission.

We’ll see if he completes it in time.


Little Ruby stands in the middle of the driveway of mud and looks at me as if to say "why?"

Dirt Cheap

I hate paying full price for things.

So, you can only imagine what happens to my penny-pinching persona when I have to shell out big bucks for such things as landscaping, drainage, and construction at my house. I’m not organized to be my own contractor, so I have to think of other ways to get a better deal.

As I don’t know a ton about concrete work, most of my methods are emotional. Like the ten percent flinch, or the trade—“would you like that old stove? It’s an antique. It’s been sitting in the driveway for a couple years sure but that rust should come right off.” “How ‘bout that old 82’ Toyota truck in the back yard. It hasn’t run since 2005 but I think it just needs a head gasket.”

Along with barter and psychological sales ploys, I also have these ultra intelligent thoughts like “Hey, I think I’ll wait until December when landscapers really need the work—and hire them at a cheaper rate.

I’ll wait until there’s a week of non-stop heavy rain.

Yeah! I’ll wait till Christmas break, until my dog-sitting business is at it’s peak, until the day of my Christmas party, until my kids and husband are home with cabin fever, until I have thirty-six paws trampling driveway mud through my house and into my Persian rugs and new wood floors at all hours of the day.

WHAT WAS I THINKING???

Someday soon I’ll have a driveway.

Do I speak Parseltongue?

Last May, a rattlesnake bit me.



Today I picked up my first snake since then.
 
I stepped from the side door of my garage (into the part of my garden I call the plant hospital—a place where dead and dying plants go to rest—my plant hospice, if you will).

My husband was standing outside the door; lips parted to ask me a question, instead something caught his eye. He looked down on the ground near my foot and he said “A snake.”

I am very proud of myself for not jumping like a cat and hanging by my fingernails from the gutter of the garage. Instead, I looked down at the small serpent, noticing that the coloring was oh so similar to a rattlesnake.

Keeping my frayed wits about me I looked a little further and noticed the head was not in the shape of a triangle.

“It’s a baby gopher snake.”

My husband let out the breath he was holding, while he conjured up the image of my giant blue leg and the rest of my body hooked up to the tubes and wires of the ICU.

Much to my own surprise, I reached down and picked up the little snake. And the little gopher snake let me pick him up.

Most gophersnakes, when they are frightened, will inflate their bodies, hiss loudly and shake their tails back and forth to imitate a rattlesnake. This little snake was very relaxed and docile. I held onto it for a few minutes, giving it a tour of my yard.

I brought it into my house.

Sierra Azul Sculpture Garden

I saw an article in Sunset Magazine about the Sierra Azul Sculpture Garden. It looked intriguing and it was close. So I packed up my youngest son and a couple of dogs and drove down the coast to Watsonville.

Going to a sculpture garden with an eleven-year-old boy and 140 pounds of dogs was not the best way to view the art and greenery but who said easy is fun? 

I was up for an adventure, not your average everyday stroll through a nursery uninterrupted, enjoying the sunlight, inhaling the perfume from the flowers appreciating the nuances of each piece of art, taking notes on each artist, talking with the docents, noticing the pairing of art and plant.

What was I thinking?

Luckily I took pictures so I can actually remember what I saw while being drug through by three individuals whose focus was to get in and out as fast as possible.

Rattlesnake Adventure Part 7: The Epilogue

 
Here I am, standing in the exact spot where I was bitten 3 weeks ago by a Northern Pacific Rattlesnake

It’s been three weeks since I was bitten by a Northern Pacific rattlesnake. A snake that is not only native to the Santa Cruz Mountains but that is very common.

As you can imagine, since my rattlesnake bite, I’ve been doing a lot of research and information gathering about the snake.

It seems that most people—myself included—are doing something they shouldn’t be doing when they are bitten. In my case, I stepped right on the snake because I was fooling with my camera and I wasn’t looking where I was going.

People seem to think that there are no rattlesnakes here in the hills surrounding Silicon Valley. The truth is they are ubiquitous.

They are just shy and non-aggressive, and tend to stay as far away from humans as possible. Given the chance, rattlesnakes will avoid humans every time.

Rattlesnakes are very beneficial. Their main food source is rodents and in turn they provide a food source for birds of prey and other snakes.

Despite the fact that between 7,000 and 8,000 people are bitten by venomous snakes in the U.S. every year, only 9 to 15 of them actually die from the snakebite.

Many more people die from lightening strikes and bee stings.

It is important to know that a rattlesnake’s first line of defense is staying still and blending in with the background.

This is the reason for their beautiful coloring. A rattlesnake will not use his rattle until you are right on top of him, or after the fact, as in my case.

This is a baby rattlesnake like the one that bit me. He was found in my backyard two years ago.
Baby rattlesnakes are born without rattles but are still poisonous, so look for the triangle-shaped head. Pit-vipers (that's what rattlesnakes are) have triangle shaped heads.

When hiking through tall grass or areas where rattlesnakes reside, wear boots, and carry a long walking stick to poke at the ground in front of you. Singing a show tune as you hike can’t hurt either, depending on how bad your voice is.

I never had a fear of snakes and I still don’t.

I am just a little more careful now. This experience won’t stop me from doing what I have always done. I hope I never get bitten again. I hope I always keep my eyes on the trail and I always look before I stick my hand into a clump of weeds when I’m gardening. But chances are I wont always. Anyone who knows me knows I’m a total klutz.

After I was bitten, I spent five days in the hospital, three days in the ICU. I went home for six days, and most of that time I spent in bed.

My leg just after returning home from the hospital for the first time. It had turned a lovely shade of green.

Same leg other side, you can see the sight of envenomation on the back of my ankle.

Six days after I was released from the hospital I was readmitted for blood clotting issues.
 
How do you bruise this badly just laying in bed? You get bitten by a rattlesnake.

Apparently, venom lasts longer than antivenin, and when the antivenin was gone the venom started to do its work on me again.

I stayed in the hospital for two more days and was released again.

I still have blood work done every few days to make sure my readings stay fairly normal.

My leg still hurts and swells at night when I’m on it too much.

I still have tingling in my mouth, lips, tongue, and fingers.

And I feel tired most of the time.

I don’t know if I will ever feel the way I did before the snakebite.

But I know I feel pretty good.

I’ve learned a lot.

I love my family, friends, and community, from whom I have received endless support and encouragement.

I am alive.

And I am happy.

And as for the snake that bit me—namaste

Stumble It!

Rattlesnake Adventure (part six) The Naked Butt Ward

My rattlesnake bite six days later.

When my relationship with Crofab was over, I was sent to stay down the hall—outside the ICU—in a normal hospital room, where I could wear a portable monitor.

It was the stroke and heart attack unit. They didn’t have a snakebite unit. While there, I saw more naked butts hanging out of the backs of hospital “gowns” than I care to think about.

A new nurse got me all settled in my bed. Then promptly left.

The nurses were on eight-hour shifts—no more twelve-hour shifts like in ICU—and you never saw the same one twice.

My next nurse approached my bed and told me that my beloved catheter had to come out.

I said, “But then I’d have to walk. And I can’t walk on this giant blue leg.”

She looked at me in the eye and said, “It was an order from your doctor.”

“But, but, I can’t walk,” said I.

That whining bought me another day, then they came in and yanked it out, along with my bladder.

That’s exactly what it felt like. After that ordeal I had to call a nurse every time I had to urinate. Gone were the days of drinking two plastic pitchers of water at a time and having my smiling nurse Ip admiring my pee. 

Now some stranger had to help me to the can every time I needed to go.

But, before they yanked my catheter out they took away something even more precious.

It was about that time when I started to feel a little uncomfortable. So, I rang for the nurse. “Nurse” said I, “May I get my pain meds now?” The nurse said, “Yes, of course I’ll get your Vicodin right away.”
 
Vicodin?

That stuff’s for sissies.

I am a snake bite victim.

“I believe if you look right there in my chart it says Dilaudid.” The nurse, “No, no more Dilaudid, we’ll give you Vicodin here.”

Vicodin after Dilaudid?

You might as well give me baby aspirin.