marysgardens

Hurricane Sandy raged through the Caribbean causing much damage, destruction and death  We wondered what she would do next as she roared up the eastern sea coast.   There was so much commotion in the news about her impending arrival

Almost exactly one year ago, we were warned about the dangers of Hurricane Irene.  Would this be a situation where the bark of the dog was bigger than its bite?  We had survived Irene relatively unscathed. Were these warnings the real thing this time?  Public news announcements and warnings continued throughout the day  and along with everybody else we prepared for the storm.  We filled up jugs of water, bought a battery operated radio, checked for candles and matches, stored some extra food and wood for the fireplace, then hunkered down and waited.

Neighbors looking over damage in front yard.

Toward evening, the winds  started to blow more incessantly.  In the early evening we looked out our window into the valley and saw what looked like fireworks as transformers exploded and sparks flew.   Soon after, we watched most of the village go black.  It was 8:25pm and most of us had no electricity.  We watched the fireworks, the whipping trees, then finally went to bed.  Then at around 3am my husband and I awoke at the sound of an enormous crash.  We looked out the windows, counted all the trees and didn’t see any missing.  When we opened up the front door to see what we might see,  we heard the winds roaring over our heads, sounding like a train going by.  Eventually we went back to bed and fitfully slept, waiting for the morning light.

Down by the Hudson River, there was a lot of water damage and flooding.  I took this photo of the river from our local library.

Hudson River after the storm

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Fallen tree in neighborhood

Once the rains and winds calmed down, we grabbed our jackets and went outside to see what was happening. Fallen trees and branches were all around us.  Some had fallen on cars, some on homes and some across electric lines and onto the street.  The damage was considerable.  

Cottage damaged from fallen tree

After several days, we also drove an hour away and checked out our seasonal cottage up in northwest Connecticut.  Although our little cottage was fine, our neighbor’s was damaged very severely by a fallen tree. 

 On the way we witnessed lines for gasoline that were very long and sometimes used police management to keep the lines orderly.  My husband counted 52 cars in one line, just waiting for gas to be pumped. 

Line for gasoline station is on the right.

For the following week, wind and water damage and shortages of electricity, gasoline and heat was all we talked about.  We shuddered to learn of the deaths and destruction that happened, especially along the coast. Commuting stopped.  Schools were closed.  Businesses also closed, or opened their doors under difficult conditions.

Sign on front door of local store

From a personal point of view, we were very lucky. Many homes were severely damaged by water and some were destroyed. Our home was not damaged by the storm.

Here are some personal examples of ways that our own situation changed that week we had without electricity, internet, or telephone.

First, we came up with a very fancy heating system in the kitchen by filling up pots with water and heating them up on the stove and letting them radiate heat.  It sort of worked.  We felt lucky that the top of the gas range worked. We reverted to lanterns and candles for lighting.  And we went to bed early.

Lighting system

Our hot water heating system

Refrigeration system

Then, things got better for us personally, when our neighbor shared a line from his generator with us, allowing us to have a light in the kitchen and to use his internet.  That was a huge improvement.  Everybody pitched in and helped out.  On the whole, there was very little complaining and a whole lot of good spirit. 

We were also lucky because we have a gas hot water heater that continued to give us hot water.  Numerous people came over and showered at our place.  It felt good that we had something to offer.  But here we are, more than seven days away from the storm, and we still have a lot of people without heat, light, or in some cases, even a home.

There are still roughly 500 households in our little village that have no electricity, and we are expecting a pretty big storm tomorrow.  People are worried about how the northeast will handle this big storm so soon after Sandy.

We got an email message from our Hastings mayor, Peter Swiderski this evening that updates us on the situation and also very effectively summarizes the frustrations that we feel.

Here is the first part of his message:

Sandy arrives

Our mayor said it perfectly.  We don’t know when things will get better for our neighbors.  And we are not happy with the current outcome.  

 It is not clear what this next storm holds.  But there are predictions of snow and cold while people are still without heat.  This has been a very fragile repair job to our electric lines, to the distribution systems, roads and homes, and I am not sure that things will hold with a storm so immediately following that blast we just received from Sandy. 

Earlier this morning, around 8am I took this shot of the sky over Hastings on Hudson.  The clouds were in long fat rolls of different shades.  There was little wind.  We expect this to be an eventful day, and we are concerned with the outcome.  But, right now, it is beautiful and quiet outside, but dark and ominous.

It is now 3:09 in the afternoon and half the sky is bright and shiny; half the sky is grey and rainy.  The winds are gusty and coming in the opposite direction from usual.  Trees are swaying.

We took precautions, as advised by our governor and our mayor of NYC.  We left Connecticut early in order to get back to New York to prepare the house for the storm.  This morning we prepared vegetarian meals to get us through a loss of electricity that is expected.  We have filled up containers with water, cleared off the decks, and are now sitting tight.

The worst thing to do now is to peek at the news to see what is coming.  It doesn’t look good.  The alarms just went off in our village.   I have seen photos showing flooding by the river into our local parks.  Most of us are a bit nervous and concerned, but at this point there is little we can do beyond watch it happen.  I worry about the size of the damage that is about to be done.  Such a large area is affected by this storm.

My husband’s flight to California on Wednesday was just canceled. The subways system, and all public transport in the city and areas surrounding it are stopped.  The buildings in south Manhattan where our son works are evacuated.  Wall Street is silent.  This is not a happy day.

According to a guerrilla group of gardeners who are gardening on public lands,   a garden can be so small that it fits in a pothole, a purse or a shoe.   Pothole Gardening: An Example   What a playful idea this is.

We seek  ways to make our transition easier as we move from a big home to a smaller one.  A site that is very helpful to me is the Tiny House Blog .  This blog draws attention to the many ways in which living in a small space can be both challenging and fun. 

I can vouch for one thing already.  Downsizing to a smaller home is invigorating.  It provides lots of exercise just running up and down the stairs, for example, carrying mattresses, blankets, sleeping bags, boxes of old toys.  And then there are all the pieces of furniture to move around, like dressers and couches, old cots and tons of books.  

Recycling is a very popular activity.   Yesterday, we put a sign sign saying “Free” on some items we put out in the front yard, next to the front road.  It included a large chair and ottoman, barbells and weights, and a lamp.  Much to our pleasure and surprise, they were all gone in a matter of a few hours.  It feels like a miracle to put items no longer wanted or used outside and watch them usefully disappear.

It is not easy to leave our home and garden after thirty years.

View from South Deck

Our home is located in the Hudson Valley and our garden is on a long and steep slope that eventually ends up at the Hudson River, facing the Palisades. When we walk to the train station to go to the city for work, we walk 0.7 miles straight down the steep slope to the river, using a sidewalk, of course, and not by rappelling in our backyard.

Backyard

Our garden is a small tamed area sitting on a slope in rather wild and natural surroundings.  It is a place to enjoy for all seasons and has a character all its own in spring, summer, fall and winter. For as long as we have lived here, we have worked on taming it, just a bit.

When we sell our home, we leave the garden behind, but we will take our gardening ideas to our next location  and will design and experiment in a new context.  We have several principles that we use in our garden that will no doubt apply to the next:  

1. The fun never stops; 
2. Our legs and back always ache and we are on our knees a lot; and
3. If you water the lawn very heavily, it will rain.

We practically have no lawn on our property.  What lawn that we do have is set on a terrace and is surrounded by flowers and bushes that mingle and match in their own ways. As the years have moved along it has become quite unpredictable what flowers we will find in the spring that have settled into our lawn.

Our North Deck in Summer

The north deck overlooks the small lawn and peers out into the terraced garden.  The deck is low and faces the Palisades.  We have spent many a summer dining out here on this deck with the children.

North Deck in Spring

South Deck in Winter

The south deck overlooks the Palisades and the Hudson River and sits much higher.

South Deck in Summer

 In any season, this deck is a great spot to watch the sun set.

Our garden is sloped and terraced. 

 There are stairs to help us get from one level to the other.

  The garden shifts from tame to wild as it heads toward the woods.

We get an interesting perspective on our garden from our attic window.

The circle of bricks surrounding the bird bath out front was built by my husband as a gift to me, some ten years ago.

The plants that we have put in in the garden are not treated in any way with chemicals.  These roses are neither fertilized nor treated with chemicals, nor are they watered regularly.  Yet, for thirty years, they have grown multiplied and thrived on the slope.  At the top of the garden slope, we compost leaves, all our cuttings and vegetable scraps from our kitchen.  The result has been wonderful. 

In the autumn, the Palisades are in full view from the North Deck, as is the Hudson River, from the South Deck. 

THere is a patch of flowers left  as a gift for me in the middle of the lawn by my son when he went to college. 

The work is begun.

We are renovating our seasonal cottage so that we can live in it comfortably in spring, summer and fall. That sounds rather simple, doesn’t it?  But our goal has resulted in a pile of old materials heaped up in our yard that used to be our old interior kitchen and bathroom walls.  We will soon have new walls, freshly painted and tiled and all this rubble will be removed.  But for now, it looks pretty messy. 

We are removing old appliances such as our 1952 Frigidaire made by General Motors and still running beautifully even though it eats a generous amount of electricity and has no defrosting capabilities.  But at least it still runs after 60 years.  We have put it up for sale and I am sure someone will give it a good home. We talked about keeping this wonderful old fridge, but decided to get a new one that has a freezer on the bottom to reduce the amount of time that we spend kneeling in front of our refrigerator as though it were a sacred relic or famous religious leader.

If there is an interested buyer who is on a diet, I might add that one asset of this refrigerator is that it takes two hands (and sometimes two people) to get the door open and if you are a little kid at least one foot as well.  This reduces the amount of time spent snacking on unnecessary food items and it is also good exercise for people who need their arms (and perhaps their legs) strengthened.

If we get depressed from looking at this heap of rubble, all we do is go around the front of the cottage and look at the lake instead.  It reminds us why we are doing this.

We knew it was going to be interesting.  We heard that it was  beautiful.  But we were still not prepared for what we found. Hole in the Wall is a jaw dropping beautiful slice of wild, raw nature. 

There isn’t much man-made entertainment there.  In fact there are no coffee shops, no restaurants, no stores, no shops, no tourists, no roads.  We didn’t see another person on the entire trip, other then ourselves.  When we arrived, we looked up the two-track dirt path and saw an abandoned light house, three ruined buildings and an old sidewalk ambling to the beach.  Yet we were completely entertained by the natural site, it’s beauty, its solace, its grace, its  solitude, its immensity.

Our trip to Hole in the Wall started when six of us were picked up at 8:30 in the morning by Abaco Nature Tours.  Ricky Johnson, our tour guide, had previously taken us on a kayaking tour and now we were headed out with him for an all day excursion of a part of South Abaco that is  largely inaccessible without a jeep or other off-road vehicle.

Four of us had never been to Hole in the Wall. Two had visited there many times over the past 30 years.  We were all excited to be going.

It was a beautiful sunny day, actually a great day for swimming and fishing, but we had other plans.  We were picked up right on time, we piled into the car with our packed lunches, sunscreen, bug repellant, walking shoes and long pants, which is unusual down here.  We are more likely to be found in t-shirts and shorts or swim suits, but this was going to be a hike and we were all dressed for the occasion.

We started our trip by taking a paved road going south until we hit the big fork in the road.  To the right, one headed to Sandy Point continuing on the paved road.  To the left, we headed off the highway onto a two track dirt road for the next 14 miles.  It took us almost an hour and a half to traverse those 14 miles as the car turned right and left, bouncing and bumping while missing big ditches, potholes, scrub brush and some muddy waters.  Then, finally, we arrived.  We hiked the last half-mile as it was too difficult for the car to go any further.  We were all happy to start walking. It felt good after all those bumps.

Mahogany Tree (Swietenia Mahagoni)

Ricky shows us the browned mahogany tree fruit with seeds ready to scatter.

While heading toward the lighthouse, we identified some very pretty mahogany trees by looking at their fruit, looking like tennis balls attached to the branches.  Eventually the fruit turns brown, then splits at the bottom sending out numerous one-winged seeds to scatter.

Hairy Wild Coffee (Psychotria Pubescens)

We also found some wild coffee bushes sitting along the edge of the road.   

We turned off the dirt road after a bit and headed on a footpath through the bush to find a bat cave with a ladder stuck in it.  We saw footpaths surrounding the cave and realized that it was a system of caves.  My husband remarked that he saw no evidence of Batman living there.  But we could smell evidence of bats living there!  After checking out the cave a bit, we returned back to the dirt road and headed for the abandoned lighthouse.

Looking back

Looking toward the Hole in the Wall

Photo by Beth Stevens

Periodically we looked back at the vast expanse, then headed on until we reached the foot of the lighthouse.  It really didn’t matter which way we looked.  The view was unbelievable.  We were overpowered by the immensity and color of the ocean.

Hiking down to the Hole in the Wall

Far off in the distance we could see the beautiful birds called  White-Tailed Tropic Bird  or “Long Tail” soaring above us with their exceptionally beautiful tails. Out in ocean, in the distance, we saw huge cargo ships.

“Where is the Hole in the Wall?” I asked.  Ricky suggested that we hike down to see it, so four of us took off with him down toward the ocean. Two stayed behind and rested in the shade of the massive lighthouse.  For those of you who are interested, additional information about historical maps of Hole in the Wall, look here .

Arriving at the beach

At first the hike was easy as we followed a cement path through a maze of sea grapes and then hiked further down until we reached the beach.  We took a left at the beach and started hiking across limestone that was full of potholes and sharp edges.  We walked carefully through the maze until we reached a point where we could finally see the Hole in the Wall.  

Hole in the Wall

The sea was calm that day, so there was no frenzy of water shooting through the hole.  However, it was still magnificent and awesome.  One could feel a sense of power emanating from the place even  when the ocean is calm.  Looking down at the ocean, we saw an incredible aqua blue that is hard to describe, even with photos.

Tough walking, but the view is worth it

We then headed back across the limestone craters and up the hill to the lighthouse. 
One suggestion I have to any beach comber who takes this hike.  Wear your walking shoes! 

Returning to the lighthouse

The meadows were also beautiful on the way back and the hike through the sea grapes was special. Without their fragile shade, we would have been wilting from the sun. The views of the lighthouse throughout were stunning.

The lesson that I learned  from this tour is that the Hole in the Wall is a place where one could spend many a day, just appreciating the sense of nature’s power and enormity.  I can’t wait to return.