grace grits and gardening

ramblings from an arkansas farm girl

How to be a good Literary Citizen

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How to be a good literary citizen

Literary Citizenship?

Lately I’ve been thinking about the topic of literary citizenship. I learned of this concept from author, Kathleen Rooney. When Kathleen spoke about it at a writer conference, she credited Cathy Day who teaches a class on the idea. Kathleen’s talk on literary citizenship was a light bulb moment for me. I’d been working to be a good literary citizen without knowing there was an official term for it. But I realized there was more I could do in that department. There’s always more we can do, right?

No, this isn’t anything new. Anyone who tries to follow the golden rule will likely do many of these things already. But putting a title on the concept expanded the idea for me and gave me a clear pathway to follow.

So what does it mean to be a literary citizen?

Literary citizenship is about supporting the literary community, whether you are a writer or a reader, a storyteller of any sort. That’s all of us! Continue Reading

Sunday Letter: 03.17.19

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Sunday Letter

Happy St. Patrick’s Day to all my Sunday Letter friends!

Don’t forget to wear green. In case you’ve forgotten, the reason for green is because mischievous leprechauns can’t see that particular color. If you aren’t wearing green, they’ll pinch you. There’s probably a more historical reason, but that’s the story we heard in elementary school back when kids could pinch each other and no one complained with more than a giggle or a whine and maybe a shove on the playground.Continue Reading

How to Make an Insect Hotel (and why you should)

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I discovered my first insect hotel at the Denver Botanic Gardens in 2018. Since then, I’ve been enamored with them. Not only do insect hotels provide a bit of garden whimsey, but they attract solitary native bees, wasps, and other beneficial insects desperately needed for pollination.

D*e*s*p*e*r*a*t*e*l*y.  

Pollinators are on the decline for various reasons—mostly due to habitat loss. Without pollinators, we may as well call it a day. Pollinators are essential to the creation and maintenance of the earth’s ecosystem. Eighty to ninety percent of all flowering plants need pollinators. Pollinators are responsible for 1 out of every 3 bites of food we eat.

This is not fake news. Take a look at this crop list from the University of Arkansas Research and Extension Office.

Crops pollinated by bees

Umm. Coffee and watermelon?

Yikes.

What constitutes a pollinator?

We often think of honey bees, right? But a pollinator is anything that moves pollen from the male part of a flower (stamen) to the female part of the flower (stigma). Pollinators include birds, solitary bees, wasps, moths, spiders, lacewings, roll poly bugs, ladybugs, fireflies, bats, hoverflies, earwigs, small mammals, and the wind.

After seeing insect hotels in Denver, I attended my first make-and-take insect hotel class at the Botanic Garden of the Ozarks (BOGO). Before I show you the hotel I created, take a look at these examples in Denver.

How to Make an Insect Hotel

These are very large and partially decorative, but even so, these Denver versions provide insect nesting places as well as education to those of us visiting the garden. It’s because of these that I first became interested in insect hotels.Continue Reading

Food. Farm. Garden. Life.

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