Sunday Letter: 06.27.21

Hi friends! I hope this Sunday Letter finds you happy and healthy and ready for a new week. June has been a blur, and can you believe, another month is nearly over? What a great month it has been for me. As in-person events have geared back up, I’ve finally been able to get out and share my books with anyone who will listen to me, at art/writer festivals and other book related events.

In between all the June book fun, I’ve been gardening.

Cut Flowers

If you received my Grace Grits Summer Newsletter last week, you know how excited I am about the mini-summer courses offered by Florets Flower Farm. I seriously don’t know when I’ve learned so much in less than 45 minutes!

Take a look at the first arrangement I made, putting what I learned to practice about the how, when, and where of cutting flower stems.

The gladiolas stems came from my neighbor’s garden. I snipped everything else from our small yard—purple coneflower, hydrangea, liatris, fern, ozark coneflower, Mexican hat, Thai basil, purple meadow rue, yarrow, and Russian sage.

Seriously, if you like to grow flowers and display them in your home, the Floret Flower Farm summer mini-course might change your life a little bit.

I Have a New PenPal

I’m happy to report I have a new penpal. (I say new because I had an Australian penpal for several years in the 1970s, but alas, we lost contact.)

Here’s how my new penpal came about…

A couple of weeks ago, I received the sweetest letter from an 88-year-old lady named Mary. She wrote to tell me how much she loved The Accidental Salvation of Gracie Lee. I probably don’t have to tell you, but hearing from this lady completely made my day. Mary doesn’t “do” the internet, but she loves to write letters using regular notebook paper and a number 2 pencil. And how cool that she sealed her letter with a bicycle sticker, just like the one Gracie rode!

Of course, I wrote her back. And I suggested that we become penpals. I’ve not heard back from her yet, but I’m sure I will. She is a farm girl too, originally from Louisiana.

I believe the world would be a better place if people went back to writing letters and having penpals. Don’t you?

Lightning Bug Days

Seeing lightning bugs at dusk brings back a world of childhood memories. But seeing them during daylight hours? This year, I’ve spotted so many in our garden. (Of course, any time you see them at night, they must be around during the day as well. Mostly, they stay hidden among tall grasses and flowers.) Maybe I’ve noticed an abundance of them because I am always outside inspecting the insects on my flowers. Trying to determine if an insect is good or bad for the garden has become one of my new hobbies. But this year in particular, I see lightning bugs everywhere!

There are over 2,000 species of lightning bugs. Some species in the western part of the United States don’t light up. That’s odd, right?

Lightning bug larvae is carnivorous; some eat small snails. Most adults nectar on flowers, but many don’t eat at all. With such a short life cycle—a month or so—they sure bring happiness to my back yard.

If you want to attract more lightning bugs, plant native flowers and shrubs, add a water feature, let your grass grow a little taller, and keep your back yard dark at night. Also, obviously, avoid pesticides.

Summer Reading

It really is true, so many things I loved as a child have stayed with me into adulthood—like going to the library. While Momma got her hair fixed at Lucille’s Beauty Shop, Staci and I walked down to the Osceola Public Library and spent the time pouring over books. I recall exactly where the set of Peter Rabbit books were shelved, and I would sit on the floor, reading them over and over right there in the silent room so cool with air-conditioning. Momma picked us up when she was finished, and we checked out a stack of books (lots of Nancy Drew) and took them home for the week, returning them the next week on beauty shop day.

Now, I have a stack of books at any given time on my desk from the Fayetteville Public Library, and I love everything about it, putting books on hold if there’s a waitlist, going to get them, reading each book one by one. Sometimes I can’t get through the entire stack before they are due back, and when they can’t be renewed, I reluctantly return them unread. I always wonder what incredible adventure I missed. (Sometimes, I place my name back on the waitlist for that particular book, and the process begins again.)

Yay for the joy of summer reading.

Things Momma Says:

(at the bookstore)

What I need you don’t sell at the bookstore.

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Cheers to a good week ahead, and thanks for reading another Sunday Letter, friends. Now, let’s go do something fun on this summer day!

Grace Grits and Gardening
Farm. Food. Garden. Life.