Hello!
It's My November Newsletter
I'll start as usual by explaining where this newsletter came from because sometimes I subscribe to an email newsletter, but then when I get it, I wonder who sent it and why I signed up for it. You might do that too.
Anyway, you signed up for this newsletter at either my blog, May Dreams Gardens or on my author website. If you didn't mean to do that or after reading this you decide this email newsletter just isn't for you, please unsubscribe. My feelings won't be hurt a bit! I subscribe and unsubscribe and then sometimes resubscribe to email newsletters quite often.
Now, with that out of the way...
My planter boxes on the front porch are at their autumn peak, so to speak. It's a simple planting of ornamental peppers, pansies, and ornamental kale, all purchased at a local greenhouse. I grew the pumpkins myself and just tossed them in a decorative wire basket. I'll leave this all in place until I decorate the porch for Christmas, which I won't do until after Thanksgiving. After Thanksgiving! When it is right and proper to do so. I'll show you what I do for the holidays in the December newsletter!
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Explaining
Last week, Dee Nash and I presented our webinar about An Easy Approach to a Sensible Social Media Presence: How to Keep Social Media Platforms from Taking Over Your Life and Business. We talked afterward and said we could almost hear the sigh of relief from participates when we said you do NOT have to do "all the things" on social media to get noticed if you are a writer, author, or just a human being.
What helps get you noticed is if you write good books or good articles or good blog posts—or even better are just being a good person—which you often don't have time to do if you are spending too much time curating the perfect social media posts, followed by scrolling through to see everyone else's posts and comparing yourself to them. Ugh. Stop that!
We offered at the end of the webinar that if anyone wants someone—a sponsor of sorts—to help them cut back or eliminate their use of social media, we're both willing to help. If you're on the fence about whether you should do it or not, take some time to read Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport and perhaps his book, Deep Work. Then email me and tell me if you've decided to try it!
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Reading
This past month I read Becoming Better Grownups by Brad Montague. Brad interviewed kids all over the country to ask them how we could become better grownups. I highly recommend this book if you are a grownup who needs a little pick me up, a renewed sense that the world can be a better place. Maybe also check out his YouTube video called the Dumpster Fire and the Garden, a story poem. That's how I found out about Brad and his book. Someone recommended the video.
On the fiction side, I've discovered Fannie Flagg's novels. I know what you are going to ask... what took you so long, Carol? I don't know, but as I write this email newsletter, I've just finished The Whole Town's Talking, the fourth book in the Elmwood Springs series. Yes, that means I've also read the other three books in this series which starts with Welcome to the World, Baby Girl followed by Standing in the Rainbow and Can't Wait to Get to Heaven because I always read book series in order, don't you?
On the gardening side of reading, I just finished Uprooted: A Gardener Reflects on Beginning Again by Page Dickey. I loved it. If you are upsizing, downsizing, resizing, moving to a new garden, or just like to read books by good writers, I recommend Dickey's book.
I keep track of all the books I read on Goodreads where I boldly set a goal on January 1st to read 100 books this year. I'm just now reading the 69th book and Goodreads tells me I'm 17 books behind! Can I read another 31 books before the end of the year? Maybe. Especially if I stop picking big long novels by Fannie Flagg! Send me your book recommendations (quick reads!) and feel free to follow along on my reading adventures on Goodreads.
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Doing
I'm back in the bird feeding business!
I took a break from feeding the birds over the summer, as one sometimes does, and started back up just a few days ago. I wondered how long it would take the birds to figure out the feeders were full again. I'd say less than a day. I've got a suet cake for woodpeckers and other birds, safflower in a tray for cardinals, a general feeder for finches and anyone else, plus peanuts for the blue jays.
The blue jays are pigs! They'll eat as many peanuts as I'll give them in a day so I decided I'll give them one feeder full each morning. They usually empty it out in less than two hours.
If you are going to feed birds, my advice is to make sure the seed is fresh, the feeders are clean, and the birdbath is heated so it doesn't freeze over. Bonus if you have shrubs nearby where birds can hide when the hawk comes to find its dinner! And put the feeders where you can look out the window and see the birds while they eat. My feeders are right outside the front window so I can see the birds that visit when I'm sitting at my computer writing or zooming or whatever.
By the way, it took me the better part of a year of feeding birds in this location to figure out how to keep the squirrels and raccoons from getting to those feeders... a long saga for another day!
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Writing
I'm still plugging away on my next book, How to Live Your Best Gardening Life.
In fact, I recently had an epiphany about it. Yes, an epiphany! An idea that I just can't let go of. So I'm reading back through the book again with this new idea in mind. I think two chapters are going to get dumped for now. That's not always easy for writers to do... throw out something they think is good stuff. But I'm not actually going to toss those chapters out. I'm going to set them aside for a future book where I think they will make more sense.
While you wait for my next book, please consider buying my other books for yourself or for a gift for another gardener. And if you know of a little kid (or grownup person) who loves Christmas stories, especially those that include little bunnies, I've got you covered there too. All my books are on my website. You can order them from me or any of the online places including bookshop.org. If you order them from me, I'll sign them. You can also ask your local independent bookstore to order copies for you!
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Gardening
When I visit gardens in all their summertime glory, I like to see what's going on behind the scenes... Is there a compost pile hidden away somewhere? What gardening tools do they have? Where's that little pile of old plastic nursery containers that never seems to go away?
And where do they put everything in the wintertime? As you can see, I just shove everything up by the house and put a big tarp over it to protect it from snow and ice. Tables, chairs, containers, yard art, those cute little things you stick in pots... it's like working on a puzzle to put it all into as little space as possible so the tarp fits over it. When I'm done, I think it looks like the back of Jed Clampitt's truck in the old television show The Beverly Hillbillies. Or it would look like that if I set a rocking chair on top, with me sitting on it, rocking away. I even wrote a blog post about it a long time ago.
When I visited gardens in Buffalo, New York back in 2017 and 2010 (I'm kinda guessing on those years and am too lazy to look them up), I was amazed at how much they put out in their gardens and wondered where they stored everything in the wintertime. From garden train sets to complete living room seating arrangements... Buffalo gardeners really know how to "set out" a garden for the summer and put it away for the winter. There's a whole book about them! Buffalo-Style Gardens: Create a Quirky, One-of-a-kind Private Garden with Eye-Catching Designs by Sally Cunningham and Jim Charlier. I know Sally and Jim through GardenComm, they know their stuff when it comes to gardens and garden design. I recommend their book for some good winter reading to "up your gardening game" with ideas that can be used in any garden, even if you live where you don't have to put away the garden for the winter.
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Wrapping Up
Graditude! That's what November—really every day—should be all about. I'm grateful for so many things, and for you reading down this far in my newsletter. Thank you!
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We just finished up the second full year of The Gardenangelists, the podcast that I record with Dee Nash. We are grateful to those who listen faithfully to us ramble on about gardening each week. Special thanks to all those who gave us great reviews and even send us occasional emails. But the most thanks goes to those listeners who tell their friends about our podcast. Thank you!
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And that's it for this month's newsletter. Thank you for reading it! If you have any suggestions, topics, or questions for future newsletters, shoot me an email!
With a shared love of gardening,
Carol
P.S. Want to watch something a little different online? How about a play? A fundraiser? Yes? Good! You can rent the play A Betrothal by Lanford Wilson for viewing anytime between Thursday, December 3, 2020 12:00 AM - Sunday, December 6, 2020 11:45 PM EST. All proceeds go to help support GardenComm. "Peer into the cutthroat world of iris breeding, where delicacy meets domination. The setting of the 35-minute play is a large tent where two flower show exhibitors have sought refuge from a sudden rainfall and in the end learn that sometimes differences are just the thing that can bring people together." I bought my ticket! Buy your ticket at this link!
P.S.S. The irises pictured above are Iris reticulata 'Lady Beatrix Stanley'. In my garden, they bloom in early March!
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