Cynthia Daniello is 84 years old and wheel-chair bound, she lives in an independent living facility in Bedford, Va. called Joshua’s Dream, part of a chain of elder care facilities owned by Metropolitan Properties of Virginia.

For some weeks, she has been leading the fight against the bone-headed people who own and run her independent living facility as they fumble and bumble while trying to justify their banning the small individual gardens and cherished bird feeders of their elderly residents.

Cynthia, who has worked and lived with animals all of her life,  retired some years ago, she has four children and a host of grandchildren. Last month, she found herself at the forefront of a painful and intense struggle, one that could possibly lead to her eviction from her small home.

The Metropolitan Properties management abruptly announced that the 50 residents of the facility had to destroy their gardens and take down their bird feeders.

The management gave all sorts of foolish and arbitrary statements about why this was necessary – aesthetics, rodents, health hazards, bears, complaints – and some of the residents were frightened and devastated.

Cynthia could easily have just looked the other way, or done what she was told, but she sprung into action, meeting with residents, firing off letters. She won a major victory a week ago when the owners backed down on banning individual gardens – some of the frightened residents had already taken theirs down. Now she’s battling the management to a standoff over the bird feeders (mostly hummingbird feeders) which some of the residents have been appreciating for years.

Her apartment was jammed with frightened, crying and angry people who didn’t know what to do. Cynthia knew what to do.  Her e-mail is [email protected]. Her blog is My Never Ending Song.

This morning, she sent me her latest letter to Joseph Moore, the head of Metropolitan Properties of North Carolina, which owns Joshua’s Dream and at least a dozen other independent living centers in the South (his e-mail is [email protected]).

Joseph Moore has yet to reply to Cynthia’s messages, or even acknowledge receiving them (same with my messages) – standard fare for CEO’s who hide – but there is good reason to believe he is reading them.

She has been launching letter after poem after letter to Mr.Moore, who probably wishes he never heard her name. She and a small group of rebels are sticking up for themselves, refusing to dismantle their gardens first, and now, their bird feeders. They are simply def

A number of residents, inspired by Cynthia’s stand,  have re-seeded their gardens and put their bird feeders back up.

I’ve been working with the elderly for a long time now, and these were the most unknowing and insensitive decrees I’ve ever heard of when it comes to their care, and their right to live in some choice and independence and dignity.

Just because you’re  80 doesn’t mean you can’t plant your own garden or look for the hummingbirds to return each Spring. You need not withdraw from the natural world, that is widely considered by psychologists to be unhealthy and depressing for older people. Just think of your own mother and what birds and gardens means or meant to her.

Lots of the residents know their birds when they see them, hummingbirds do not require seeds, they drop nothing on the ground, and they return to their summer grounds every year.

An enlightened management in charge of elder care is usually desperate for older people to have activities that promote activity, creativity and individuality.

This management seems to love to dictate rules with no representation or consultation. Perhaps they count on older people to be timid and fearful. Perhaps they didn’t count on Cynthia Daniello.

Many of the residents were in tears at the thought of losing their gardens and also their feeders – some said the same hummingbirds came back  year after year.

The management warned them that their homes would be regularly inspected; “violations” of these decrees could be told to leave after three violations.

Staffers came by to take photographs of the offending defiant bird feeders and warn the residents they would be getting their violation notices that very day.

But that hasn’t happened and nearly two weeks has gone by. It’s beginning to look like Cynthia is piling up another victory, a giant step for the elderly everywhere. As it is, 8-year-old people have little to call their own, what living things they can nurture and watch are precious to them.

Cynthia’s home become a center of the Joshua’s Dream resistance. Most of the residents are too frightened to speak out publicly – they had only a few days to destroy their gardens and take down their feeders. But they swarmed Cynthia’s house every morning.

Joseph’s Dream is a low-income housing development, many of the residents are frightened about complaining, many have no place else to go.

Cynthia doesn’t want to move either, but she put her own interests behind the vulnerable people around her who need help.

She started fighting and never stopped – calling reporters, rallying her fellow residents, defying the ban regulations, writing letters to management, especially the president of the company.

She seems unflappable and accepting to me, I’ll bet the management blinks long before she does.

Her blog, The Never Ending Song,  has become a bulletin board for protesters and residents.

Cynthia’s efforts on behalf of her fellow residents paid off, I’m happy to say. The company rescinded the ban on gardens, saying only that no flowers can be taller than 10 inches

I hope the reclusive Mr. Moore understands the untenable position he is in, I would not ever dare to take bird feeders and gardens away from a bunch of tough and determined women in their 80’s. That can only end one way.

Then Cynthia went to work on the feeder ban, she and eight or nine neighbors have simply refused to take their feeders down.  That’s where we are. So far, the ski has not fallen, nobody has been arrested.

I first met Cynthia a couple of months ago, it was over the phone, she called into my radio show to talk to me about animals. We clicked, and something in her voice and manner told me she was a very special human being. I was right, it turns out.

She is also a writer and a poet, she knows how to make good use of words. You can follow her blog here.

I wonder sometimes where she gets the energy and courage to do what she does, every day. She is a very rare human being.  I am proud to call her my friend.

Yesterday, she sent me a message, this is a part of it.