2017 Happened Like This

There's no better way to get back into the blogging habit that just starting. I've intended to do this countless times and always got interrupted before I could finish. Now here we are, at the beginning of another new year and I'm long overdue for an update! I've tried to keep up with many of you as you traversed your busy year too, but I know I've missed some of your adventures. Why does life have to move along so quickly?

This blog post is longer than I usually write, but I'll try to briefly recap what I've been up to, with some more detailed blog posts later.

January brought a bathroom remodel that was a year later in coming than we'd planned. We only have one full bath in this house, and it had been 25 years since the last update, so this was kind of a big deal.

I was pretty happy about the updated bathroom, but the really exciting thing that January brought was the culmination of months of work towards the formation of a specialized license plate for the state of Ohio that would benefit the monarch butterfly. It officially was available for sale on January 11^th and I was right there at my local BMV when they opened, to get mine.

This gave me great satisfaction, because it shows you don't have to “be someone” to get things done. With the sale of each monarch organizational plate, Monarch Wings Across Ohio will receive $15 for monarch research. As long as 25 plates are sold each year, they will keep it available to anyone who has a licensed vehicle in the state of Ohio.

Monarchs cling to oyamel fir trees in the Sierra Chincua monarch reserve
in the Transvolcanic mountains of Central Mexico.

The end of February found Romie and me heading south to Mexico to see the monarchs in their overwintering grounds. Beth and Ernie Stetenfeld from Wisconsin joined us for the six-day trip, and I can't say in a brief paragraph what a wonderful experience it was to fulfill this bucket list item. So there will definitely be a few more posts about it.

March ushered in a much anticipated spring and all of a sudden, it was April. This was a roller coaster of an emotional month, as my second book, THE MONARCH: Saving Our Most-Loved Butterfly, was released. On Earth Day, April 22^nd. The Paulding County Carnegie Library hosted a book release party and the event was very successful and a lot of fun.

The Paulding County Carnegie Library threw a fun and fabulous party
celebrating the release of my book.

Later that same day, my 102-year-old grandma passed away. We knew it was coming, and she lived a wonderfully long and full life, but it doesn't make it any easier. In fact, it might be harder, because when you've had a grandma like her for nearly 60 years, you really can't imagine your life without her. But we do have hundreds and hundreds of memories to cherish.

This photo of my grandma and me was taken on Christmas Eve 2016, two
days before her 102nd birthday. It's the last photo I have with her.

When I was writing my book, I consulted with Dr. Lincoln Brower, one of the world's foremost authorities on monarchs. He's in his 80s now and is a research professor at Sweet Briar College in Virginia. I wanted to meet him and personally give him a copy of my book, so I asked if I could do so. He graciously invited me to his home so Romie, my mom, and I planned a trip for May. We spent the afternoon with him and then we all went to dinner. Meeting him was one of the highlights of my year.

I enjoyed my conversation with Dr. Lincoln Brower when I visited him in
his Virginia home in May.

On this same trip, we stopped in Pittsburgh to visit my publisher's offices – St. Lynn's Press. We learned that the office space was previously held by a company that my husband's employer does business with on a regular basis. It was a “six degrees of separation” moment!

Me, with my St. Lynn's Press #TeamMonarch: Holly Rosborough, Chloe Wertz,
and Paul Kelly. My editor, Cathy Dees, was away, in California.

While in Pittsburgh, we also visited Phipps Conservatory, took a night trip to a location overlooking the city that I learned of from Atlas Obscura, and had dinner with friend, Jessica Walliser, author of several books and radio show host.

Phipps Conservatory in Pittsburgh

Downtown Pittsburgh at night, as seen from the West End Overlook

We then headed a bit south, where we visited the Flight 93 Memorial. Mom and I had been there twice before, but it was Romie's first time. It's a moving experience, no matter how often you see it.

Continuing on south, we headed to the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, for that visit with Dr. Brower. After overnighting at Sweet Briar College's Elston Inn, we kept going south.

My grandma was born here in 1914. Called Ravenwood, it was built in 1849.

Because we were close enough to Crewe, Virginia, birthplace of my grandma that had just passed away, we wanted to try to find the house where she was born. We knew it was still standing. After a really interesting series of conversations with locals, we found it. I wish we would have been able to share the experience with her.

Jacqui Knight, from New Zealand, was an absolute delight, and she came
to the Paulding County Master Gardeners plant sale before continuing on her
journey. I was selling and signing my books at the sale.

Also in May, I was thrilled to have a visit from Jacqui Knight, Trustee with Monarch Butterfly New Zealand Trust. Jacqui lives in Auckland and was in the U.S. on an ambassador trip, visiting key locations in our country for gathering information about the monarch. She visited Monarch Watch at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas, where she met MW founder, Dr. Chip Taylor. She also stayed with Dr. Brower in Virginia, and was working her way back west when she spent a night with us. 

Just a mile from us, power lines were knocked flat by straight line winds.

We showed her some good old Paulding County  straight line winds, complete with a power outage! Since we had no power, we drove to Van Wert for supper. We didn't regain our power until late that night, but since  you don't need electricity to talk, Jacqui and I had some good conversation about the monarch we both love so much. New Zealand has its own small population of monarchs.

The U.S. Botanic Garden is situated on the National Mall, near The Capital.
See the dome of The Capital just left of center?

Flingers at Hillwood Estate, home Marjorie Merriweather Post.

June brought the annual Garden Bloggers Fling, this time held in the Washington, D.C. area. I'll have more later on the gardens we saw, but one of the highlights of the Fling is getting to be with garden blogger friends that we may only get to see once a year, as well as meeting some for the first time.

This is just part of the spectacular rock gardens at Chris Hansen's home.

We weren't home very long when Mom and I took off again, this time to Holland, MI, where we visited Chris Hansen, breeder of the popular SunSparkler® and Chick Charms® sedums. His gardens at his beautiful home are captivatingly designed and I wanted to spend oodles of time looking at the hundreds of varieties of rock garden plants he has there.

Susan Martin's property is almost entirely in shade, so she has surrounded
her home with a carpet of texture and a kaleidoscope of greens.

We spent a few days at Chris's home, but we also got to visit one of our favorite garden centers, Garden Crossings (why can't all garden centers be like this?), Chris's Garden Solutions business site, the Walters Gardens display gardens, and we also got to have dinner with Susan Martin, as well as visiting her lovely woodland garden.

Always a must-visit at Cultivate is the Peace Tree Farm booth.

July always means a trip to Columbus to attend the Cultivate trade show, where we get to see all kinds of new plants and garden products, as well as talk with industry people. We're fortunate that this is held in our backyard and is an easy trip to our state's capital. Being a member of GWA (Garden Writers Association) has its perks when it comes to this show, too. (Free admission!)

We saw a myriad of garden ideas in the private gardens of Buffalo that we
toured at the GWA Expo and Symposium.

The busy summer wasn't over yet. The annual GWA Expo and Symposium was held in August in Buffalo. Mom and I drove up for it and not only did we get to see some of the fabulous gardens that are part of the famous Garden Walk Buffalo every summer, we took a day and went over the border into Canada, to see Niagara Falls and some gardens there. I'll share more of that in another post, too.

Thanks to our Canadian neighbors for the red, white, and blue display!

Later in the month, Romie and I drove to Nashville to experience the total solar eclipse with our friend, Barbara Wise. I love spending time with Barbara and this was made extra special because of the eclipse. If you've never experienced seeing it in totality, you really must put that on your bucket list. It's nothing like seeing a partial eclipse. Trust me.

August begins the tagging season for migrating monarchs, and this year, we raised and tagged more than 100 monarchs and sent them on their way to Mexico. It was a great year, and all signs point to the numbers in Mexico being up when they do the count down there for the winter.

Speaking of monarchs, at the end of August, we were host to Butterbiker Sara Dykman, who was on her way back to Mexico and was passing through our area. I spearheaded arranging to have her speak in Ft. Wayne at the University of St. Francis as well as our local elementary school students. 

Sara Dykman, a biologist from Kansas City, as she's leaving a two-night
stay at Our Little Are.

Sara recently completed a 10,201-mile round trip from Central Mexico to Canada and back again, following the monarch migration, all on her bicycle, spreading monarch awareness all along the way. She's the only person to have done this.

The time together is never long enough. 💕

We were excited for September to arrive, because our exchange student from Ecuador, who lived with us in 1993-94, Karina, came for a visit, with her husband and two little boys. It was the first time our daughters had seen her since she last visited in 1999. Needless to say, we had an absolute wonderful time and it was fabulous to have her sleeping under our roof again.

Photo courtesy of Jean Persely.

I had a few speaking engagements this fall, including one at the Monarch Festival in Ft. Wayne, IN. Romie and I also traveled to Midland, MI, in October, where I spoke to a wonderful group of Master Gardeners and others from the community.

Also in October, Romie,  grandson Anthony, and I drove down to the Cincinnati Nature Center to hear Monarch Watch founder, Dr. Orley "Chip" Taylor, speak about monarchs. Though we'd exchanged a few emails prior to this, we'd never personally met. 

Photo courtesy of Carolyn Turner

Healthwise, the fall wasn't great, as I battled strep twice and bronchitis, but things slow down during that time anyway, with the exception of the holidays. By the middle of November, I was able to get together with several of my fellow dental hygiene classmates (IPFW – Class of 1977), some of whom I hadn't seen for nearly 40 years.

It's amazing how you can be apart for so long, but once you're back
together again, it's almost as if no time has passed at all. (Almost.)

That's pretty much it, along with some book signings and a lot of interviews for podcasts, radio, and TV shows. (More about those later.) It was certainly a busy year, but also a fun one and 2018 is looking pretty good, too. 

My next speaking engagement is the regional Perennial Plant Association regional meeting in Chicago at Morton Arboretum on February 3. I'll be sharing the program schedule with Doug Tallamy, author of the bestselling Bringing Nature Home. Yep, I'm name-dropping and I'm a tad bit nervous about the whole thing, but I'm also looking forward to meeting him and hearing him speak.

Now that you're caught up, I'll do my best to share some details of these fun activities in future posts. And I promise not to go AWOL for so long either. If you're a long-time reader, thanks for hanging in there with me, and if you're new to Our Little Acre, welcome! I encourage you to look through the archives for gardening ideas as well as my ongoing adventures with monarchs. 

And I've got some exciting news on that monarch front! Stay tuned!  🦋

Thank You, Daniel — We Will Miss You

Yesterday, one of my garden writer friends lost a hard-fought battle with pancreatic cancer. Daniel Gasteiger was a book author, a newspaper columnist, a blogger, a social media marketing consultant, and more than all that, he was an incredible human being. So many of us are mourning his passing right now and I wanted to share my own Daniel story. It's long, so be forewarned. It's actually done Daniel-style: he could never use ten words when twenty would do...


Every once in a while, someone comes along who stands out and makes a difference in your life. I met Daniel Gasteiger in person for the first time, at the Philadelphia Flower Show, six years ago.

Me, Daniel, and Shawna, at the Philadelphia Flower Show in 2011.

First of all, I couldn't believe I was actually at the show. Shawna Coronado and I had been sent there courtesy of the Plastics Make It Possible group and we had an incredibly good time, while highlighting how plastics can have a place in the gardening world in a good way. Meeting Daniel was just icing on the cake.

Over the years, Daniel and I had some wonderful, serious, funny, fabulous conversations, mostly online, because he lived in Pennsylvania (on the east side) and I live in Ohio (on the west side). But now and then, we'd see each other at a garden event and you know how it is - it was like we had just seen each other yesterday.

Daniel took this photo of Shawna, Jenny, and me, when we were in
Tucson, AZ, for the Garden Writers Association annual meeting in 2012.

Daniel started this crazy thing where he'd say online how he sure wished he could meet me someday. Those who would read it would think we'd never met in real life. I had some people say to me, "You've never met Daniel in person before?" I'd explain the ruse, telling them that we'd actually met several times, and they'd look at me funny, like they didn't think it was really funny at all. But they just didn't get it and that didn't matter anyway. Daniel and I did.

Then the day came when I got a contract to write a book with Jenny Peterson. Neither Jenny nor I had ever written a book before and this was definitely uncharted territory for us. Daniel and I were both waiting for a flight in an airport somewhere I can't remember right now, and he congratulated me on the contract and we had a lengthy conversation about book writing.

I reviewed Daniel's book for Horticulture
magazine here.

Daniel had just published his fantastic book, Yes, You Can! And Freeze and Dry It, Too: The Modern Step-by-Step Guide to Preserving Food, the year before, and he had some sage words of advice about writing. Of all the things he said, the one thing that really stuck with me was this: "I wrote that book in three weeks."

WHAAAAAAAAAT???????

Now seriously, people. If you've ever written a book, you'll know how insane that is. I know now that he was probably referring to the actual sitting down and putting it all together, using bits and pieces from his blog and newspaper articles and filling in whatever he needed to in order to produce a cohesive, proper tome, but dang. Three weeks.

Jenny and I wrote our book and while it took longer than three weeks, we were under a tight schedule and it was Daniel's inspiration that kept us motivated, giving us the confidence that we could do it. And we did. Indoor Plant Decor: The Design Stylebook For Houseplants was released on April 15, 2013.

Time went on and Daniel kept right on wishing he could meet me and I wished right back that I could meet him. Somewhere in there, he made plans to stop off at our house on the way home from Chicago and share supper with us. We were out of bread and though I don't remember now what it was we were having, we needed bread.

Since we live in the middle of nowhere and going to the store to buy some bread involves more than a quick car trip to the store and back, I texted Daniel, who was on his way, and asked if he could stop somewhere and get a loaf of bread. It just so happened, he had a loaf in his car. Doesn't everyone carry a loaf of bread in their car in case there's a bread emergency?

Daniel often camped out on his cross-country trips, so of course he had some bread, and he supplied it for our meal. And when he left, somehow the loaf of bread didn't go with him. So a loaf of bread got added to our, "I hope I can meet you someday" tete-a-tete of sorts: "And if I ever get to meet you, I'll bring a loaf of bread."

A few years went by and last year, I got another book contract - for The Monarch: Saving Our Most-Loved Butterfly - this time writing solo. Once again, I was on a fairly tight schedule. It's a pretty well-known fact that I'm The Queen of Procrastination, but I was determined to set aside my title in order to get this book done without the stress and drama that goes along with procrastination. But you know what happened, don't you?

When I got home from the GWA meeting in Atlanta last September, I knew I really had to put my nose to the grindstone and crank that baby out. And Daniel once again came to mind. I had three weeks until my deadline and the bulk of the book had yet to be written. If Daniel could do it, so could I. So I shut myself up in an upstairs bedroom, looked at my husband and said, "See you in three weeks," and closed the door.

My bedroom office.

There's something to be said for shutting out the rest of the world and concentrating on a single task. I've always done my best work when I'm down to the wire and I'm forced to just do it. It isn't always that I don't like what I'm doing - I loved writing this book - it's just that a lot of the writing process for me happens in my head first. If things aren't organized a certain way in my head, I simply can't put it on paper.

The book got finished and yes, the bulk of it was written in those three-weeks-that-turned-into-four. I only left the house twice in that time. I was on a roll and woe be it to anyone who interrupted the flow of things. My husband was nothing short of awesome. A saint, really.

But I don't think I could have accomplished what I did had it not been for Daniel being there in the back of my mind, urging and encouraging me, though he didn't really know at the time. He truly was a huge driving force, especially as I battled bronchitis during that time and wanted to do nothing but sleep. He kept me focused.

I wanted to let Daniel know how much I appreciated him, so in the acknowledgements at the back of The Monarch, you'll see this:

When I got my copies of the book, I sent one to Daniel, telling him to be sure to see page 158. About a week later, I got this heartfelt note from him, which I will always treasure...

Click on image to make it larger and easier to read.

Daniel was an inspiration to many and it was pure joy to be in his presence. He had an energy that was compelling and you wanted to be a part of it. The best thing was - he let you. I hoped I would get to "meet" him again before this awful disease took him from us. But in the end, I'm grateful that our paths crossed at all, and that I was privileged to have him in my life, even if it was for such a short time. 

Rest well, Daniel.

A Trip to Mexico, A New Book, and This Blog

Goodness, look at the time! The last time I posted to my poor, neglected blog was at the end of January, when I was trying to grow an avocado plant from the pit inside one I'd received in a Blue Apron shipment. So much has happened since that time - unfortunately, that doesn't include a new avocado plant - that I don't know if I'll ever get caught up writing about it all, but you've got to start somewhere, right?

I wrote my latest book during the fall and early winter, and that involved some pretty intense writing time. Here's how I did it...

I literally holed up in a bedroom and did nothing but write, research, and write and research, for four straight weeks. The bulk of my book got written in that time, with many other small writing sessions and lots of editing in the weeks that followed that writing marathon.

For some odd reason, I tend to write better and am more prolific when I'm under pressure and there's nothing like a looming deadline to provide that. With a project as large as writing an entire book all by yourself (my first one - Indoor Plant Decor: The Design Stylebook for Houseplants - was with co-author and friend, Jenny Peterson), concentration and staying on task is paramount and there's no one more easily distracted than I am. Thus, pretty much shutting myself off from the outside world was the only way I was going to accomplish everything I needed to do to get that book out the door.

My bed was my desk for weeks.

After I got home from the GWA (Garden Writers Association) Annual Symposium in Atlanta last September, I looked at Romie as I headed into the bedroom which became my office, and said, "See you in three weeks," and went to work. That three weeks became four.

Jenny and Brett Davis
November 5, 2016

During that time, I got bronchitis and sure didn't feel like writing, but the book didn't care. So I slept and wrote and slept and wrote, and took my antibiotics. I got well enough to travel to Texas to see Jenny get married and visit a couple of other friends, Diana Kirby and Pam Penick, only to return home and contract pneumonia. Romie joined me in that fun. Not the trip to Texas. The pneumonia.

Then it was Thanksgiving, and then Christmas, and then book editing with both St. Lynn's Press editor, Cathy Dees, and Art Director, Holly Rosborough. Just when that was almost finished, Romie and I went off to Mexico, chasing monarchs, but not before I had another bout with bronchitis. I have to think stress had something to do with my less-than-stellar immune system, which has never been all that fantastic since I had bacterial meningitis in 1999.

Overwintering monarch butterflies cluster on the oyamel fir trees at
El Rosario sanctuary in Michoacán, Mexico.

By the time we got back from Mexico in early March, last minute book editing was the order of the day and then the book was finally off to the printer, in time for its release date of April 12th. The book has enjoyed the position of #1 Hot New Release on Amazon, off and on, ever since its release was first announced back in August, but nearly always has held that spot in the month prior to April 12th and in the month since. It has also received 21 5-star reviews so far on Amazon, and some very positive reviews on blogs. I'm grateful.

So, with my next post, which WILL be within the next week, I'll just dig right in and start telling you about the events I've attended, the gardens I've visited, the new (to me) garden products I've tested, and of course, that fabulous trip to Mexico. I promise.

Announcing My New Book About Monarchs!

It will come as no surprise to many of you when I tell you I’m writing another book and that the subject of the book is monarch butterflies. It is now listed on Amazon and is available for pre-sale!

In my newspaper column, on Facebook, and in this blog, I’ve talked about the situation with monarchs: their decline in population, the reasons for that decline, and what we can do about it. It’s a subject about which volumes could be written, but I’m limiting my take on it to just one.

The Monarch: Saving Our Most-Loved Butterfly is an assembling of a wide variety of information that I’ve researched, as well as experienced in my own garden. I have included many astounding facts about the monarch, its physiology, life cycle, and why the monarch matters.

There are a few DIY projects included that are easy and will help our favorite butterfly in some way. Those of you who want to learn more will find plenty of reference material to help you keep adding to your knowledge about the monarch beyond what is in my book (and there’s a lot to learn).

I’ve been intimately involved with monarchs here at Our Little Acre for more than ten years now. I raise them from the egg stage all the way through release of the adult butterfly and in my book, I’ll show you how to do it too.

While there is some technical information presented, with plenty of photos to help illustrate much of it, it won’t overwhelm you. It will fascinate you. If you’re not careful, you might just fall in love with the monarch, as I did so many years ago.

As a citizen scientist, I contribute to the collection of information by monarch researchers by reporting data to Journey North, as well as late summer and autumn tagging of migrating monarchs through the University of Kansas. I’ll share how you can do this, if you so choose.

The Monarch: Saving Our Most-Loved Butterfly is a work of passion and love and my hope is that it will open your eyes to one of nature’s most amazing creatures.

Though the current situation with them could be described as depressing, my book isn’t. There’s plenty of reason for optimism, as you’ll see, and I’ll show you how you can be a part of that.

Yes, you can make a difference. Don’t doubt it.

The book will be released on April 3, 2017, but is available for pre-order now. It's a hardcover book and lists for $18.95. If you order through Amazon now, they guarantee if the price goes lower between now and its release (very likely), they’ll honor the lower price. But my hope is that those of you who read it will find it to be worth far more.

_______________________

This post contains affiliate links.

Wordless Wednesday: For Katie

For Katie...

Indoor Plant Décor Goes Live!

Today is the day. The major project that co-writer and friend Jenny Peterson and I undertook last May is out there in the world.

Indoor Plant Décor is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

When we began our quest to write a book together, we knew very little about the process. We talked with a couple of publishers who wanted us to write, but they both wanted us to write about something different. But we had a goal in mind and we were elated when Paul Kelly, owner of St. Lynn's Press said yes.

After a lot of phone time and much discussion on the direction our book would take before he even offered us a contract, last May we signed on to do it.  At the exact same time we began writing our book, Jenny discovered she had breast cancer.

There was a lot of contemplation about what to do - should we put off writing the book or should we go ahead with it?  What was best for everyone? I wanted to do what was best for Jenny, and Paul was supportive of whatever we decided, so when Jenny determined that she could - she would - do this, it was on.

That doesn't mean it was easy. We both had some physical issues that not only occurred at the same time, but they came at a crucial time in the book writing process. Add a week without power and shuffling from one offspring's home to another to stay cool in the 100-degree heat of July while trying to secure and upload photos to meet a deadline and things got a little scrappy there for a bit.

But with that part over with, and the rest of the book before us, it was Jenny that had to persevere through chemo and radiation, all the way up to the end of December, when we were submitting our final material. I'm here to tell you right now, I'm pretty sure I could not have done what she did, let alone do it as well as she did it.

To say she was inspirational leaves a lot unsaid. I saw the scars. I was there during some of the tearful times - the ones that she wanted the world to know happened, but didn't particularly want them to see.  She didn't want people to think she was Wonder Woman, but she didn't think they necessarily wanted to see the not-so-nice part of it all either. In the end, what we all saw was a beautiful soul who handled what life dealt her with grace.

Today Jenny is cancer-free and one of my closest friends.  When I first took a look at the finished Indoor Plant Décor, I saw a nice-enough looking book.  I'm uncomfortable saying I'm proud of anything I've done, but I am proud of it, and not for the reasons you might think.

When I look through its pages, see the photos, and read the words, I see all the months of phone calls, personal visits, the shared laughter, anguish, and yes, tears.  I see two friends who now share this special kind of bond, represented to the world as a book about houseplants, but that will always be so much more to the two authors who wrote it.

Jenny and me, at the Bailey Nurseries photo booth in Tucson, Ariz,
while attending the Garden Writers Association annual meeting in October 2012.