May 11, 2018
What It Takes To Maintain a 13-Acre Park.
Vickey Hudimac can be seen in the Railyard Park most Tuesday and Thursday mornings, ready for the day’s gardening tasks. She’s been volunteering as a Yardmaster since April 2017 when she met the Railyard Conservancy’s Executive Director, Christy Downs, and other Yardmasters at a Free Rose Pruning Workshop in the park. Since then, Vickey has benefited from subsequent workshops in the park and has especially enjoyed learning from Victor Lucero – Santa Fe’s enthusiastic pest expert!
Vickey felt like she was literally saving trees by hand-removing pine-tip month larvae from infected pines. Indeed, she was! Before moving to Santa Fe over six years ago, Vickey lived abroad in Poland, where she taught English, practiced piano, hiked in the Tatry Mountains (near where her immigrant Slovakian grandparents were born), and participated in the beloved Polish pastime – gathering wild mushrooms! Before Yardmasters, VIckey’s gardening experience was gleaned in the suburbs of Washington DC, helping her father plant and work in the garden. One of her fondest memories is of receiving a composting kit. She mixed “green” with “brown” and some soil and in the end, she got “black gold”.
Vickey looks forward to continuing as a Yardmaster volunteer with fellow enthusiasts who “teach me about goatheads and mulch and the benefits of switching hands when using the trash picker-upper”.
We, at the Railyard Park Conservancy, are so grateful for Vickey’s commitment to the park and the contribution she makes to our community!