Tag Archives: everything else

Our site was down for some people today (including us). Thankfully it is running better than ever!

Now we can make sure that there is no shortage of puppy pictures and baby ducks.

My friend Robin Lanting is one of the best moms I’ve ever known. Her three children- Chase, Parker and Madison- are three of my favorite people in the world. The have great manners and they can carry on a thoughtful conversation with an adult. The whole family is just all together charming.

One of my favorite Lanting traditions is called High/Low. Every night at the dinner table everyone takes turns telling the high and low point of their day. I have adopted High/Low as a conversation starter at awkward dinner parties. It’s a great ice breaker and never fails to get people talking.

I was thinking about High/Low this morning while I was harvesting lavender because it was such an obvious high point of my day. Harvesting lavender from my own plants, listening to the flock grazing and calling to each other, with my dog by my side. It was one of those moments when I realized how incredibly lucky I am.

My low? Today hasn’t had one so far.

What were your highs and lows today?

Joel and I took a trip to Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, PA this week to see their much-anticipated Light exhibit. I promise that I am not exaggerating at all when I say that it was one of the loveliest, most inspiring things I’ve ever seen in my life.

The exhibition is a by British artist Bruce Monroe and covers more than 23 acres of the gardens. I don’t think I have ever heard so many gasps, so many exclamations of awe in my entire life as I heard while we explored the exhibit. It is positively breath-taking, like stumbling into a fairy land or a wonderful dream.

 Joel and I both took hundreds of pictures but they don’t begin to do the exhibit justice.

On the advice of someone who works at Longwood Gardens, we arrived before sunset and we were so glad we did. Seeing the lights in their setting before it was completely dark was magical. All of the lights change color very slowly.

The exhibit runs through September 29, 2012 and believe me when I tell you that you don’t want to miss the opportunity to see Light at it’s only U.S. showing. It is a once in a lifetime experience. We left at the very last minute, just as they were closing the doors at 11 p.m., filled to the brim with admiration and inspiration and plans to return as soon as possible. Do make plans to go see it.

Tickets are $18 for adults and $8 for children and students. Plan to arrive well before sunset if you can. There are a couple of restaurants on the property but you are also welcome to bring a picnic. Comfortable shoes and mosquito spray are essentials.

Having a blog, particularly a blog that’s associated with a business, can be a tricky thing. Every day there is the opportunity to accidentally offend readers with my opinions, to over-share, or to write something in the heat of the moment that I’m bound to regret later.

On the other hand, I’ve never really liked the kind of blogs that are nothing but unicorns and rainbows and sparkly cupcakes. I just don’t think anyone’s life is 100% perfect 100% of the time. I find blogs like that to be fake-fake and- even worse- boring.

It’s a bit of tightrope walk, really.

So while I try to be true to myself when I write here, there are some topics I will never write about on this blog. Politics. Religion. The Middle East Peace Process. Not because I don’t have opinions on those topics. OH MY GOD do I ever have opinions! But I don’t think this particular space is the place for them.

See, I think that one of the great things about craft is that it’s a piece of commonality, something we call all agree on. I may not agree with your choice of political party but I can still appreciate the hell out of that cardigan you knit. We may have been raised in different faiths but that will never stop me from complimenting your straight seams.

Which reminds me of a speech I heard once by the ad guy who created one of the most famous and successful ad campaigns of all time. Bill Backer was flying to London work on a radio spot for Coke, but Heathrow airport was completely socked in with fog and their plane couldn’t land. The flight was diverted to Shannon, Ireland to wait out the fog, and everyone on the plane spent a couple of days in a tiny airport cafe, waiting to board the flight at a moment’s notice when the fog lifted.

As you can imagine, the passengers were not happy to be stuck in an airport with complete strangers. But within a short time, Backer noticed that even the most irate among them were sitting around tables laughing together and sharing stories about their lives while they drank Cokes and ate snacks. In Backer’s mind, Coke immediately became more than just a sugary drink– it was something that everyone had in common. Something everyone could agree one.

And that’s how the “I’d like to Buy the World a Coke” campaign was born.

I have to admit, I got a little teary when I heard that story for the first time. I get teary when I think about today. Yes, it’s a Coke advert, but it’s also something kind of beautiful and true. Replace “buy the world a Coke” with “teach the world to knit” and I think you’ll see what I mean.

Wondering where we’re going here? If I’m  going to be able to weave all these disparate threads into some kind of coherent blog post? Stay with me, we’re very nearly there.

This blog is part of my business but it is also incredibly meaningful to me. This space, these posts, and your participation are incredibly meaningful to me. And because it’s meaningful to me, I’m going to do my damnedest to make sure that everyone feels welcome and supported here.

Hence the new comment policy. It’s short and sweet and should be easy for everyone to remember. Here it is. Be civil. That’s it. You can disagree with me. You can disagree with each other. You can point out my mistakes (I make loads of them!). You can tell me I’m wrong. You can challenge me to a duel with pistol at dawn if you like but you must be civil while doing so. No snark. No nastiness. No meanness of any stripe.  To paraphrase Mrs. Dashwood from Sense & Sensibility, if you can’t disagree without being disagreeable, kindly restrict your comments to the weather.

Comments that violate this new (and not-all-that-onerus) policy will be moderated. By which I mean deleted. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!

I happen to know that this isn’t going to be a problem for 99.99% of you, because my readers are good and kind and lovely people. Honestly, I can count the number of comments that I’ve moderated in the last five years on one and a half hands. Which is to say that this really isn’t a problem we have now to any large extent. I’m just trying to be proactive before it becomes a larger problem. But I didn’t want to implement a new policy without letting you know whys and wherefores.

Now feel free to discuss. Civilly.

Okay, maybe hate is too strong a word. And maybe it’s not so much Summer that I hate as it is “Summer in a climate that makes walking out to the car feel like a full day’s work and requires a change of clothes.”

I just find it incredibly difficult to motivate myself when the weather is so oppressive. I mean, I just got back from a (sort of) vacation in EUROPE, for godssake, and all I wan to do is sleep till noon and immediately start making plans for my afternoon nap.

I do not have this problem in any other season. In fact, I find that the (admittedly mild) winters around here lead to hyper-productivity on my part. I like the added urgency everything takes on in winter. I enjoy Jack Frost nipping at my nose!

Okay, so I don’t hate Summer. I just hate the lazy Susan (see what I did there?) that I become when the mercury climbs into the 90s and beyond. Today is blessedly in the 70s but tomorrow we start the death march towards 100 all over again.

I’m not altogether fond of the whiner writing this blog post either.

I’m curious. Do you find yourself losing steam in the Summer?

When I wrote an open letter to the managing directors of the Schleich toy company last week, I assumed that- if I was lucky enough to receive a reply at all- it would be a form letter from a PR firm. Instead, I received a personal letter from one of the managing directors, Paul Kraut. A letter that made it very clear that Schleich had read my letter.

I don’t mind telling you that I got very teary when I read this letter. Because I had been able to make my voice heard and be taken seriously. And because we- everyone of  you who commented on that post and tweeted about it and linked to it on Facebook- we effected a real and positive change. I am so proud of us!

I am so grateful to Herr Kraut for hearing us, for admitting the mistake, and for his promise to make sure it isn’t repeated. His letter should be required reading for all business school students. It’s thoughtful, humble and gracious.

I am delighted to be able to support one of my favorite companies again. I celebrated today by purchasing a dozen Schleich sheep and lambs for decorations at a trade show Caroline and I are attending this weekend. It’s important to remember that voting with our dollars works both ways; I will be supporting the Schleich toy company whenever possible.

Can I ask a favor? Juniper Moon Farm has applied for an enormous grant from Chase Bank and Living Social. They are awarding 12 grants of $250,000 each to small businesses. As you can imagine, that kind of cash infusion would be a great for the farm, allowing us to start a small dairy and creamery for the purpose of making artisanal cheeses, and to at long last purchase a farm of our very own. (We currently lease.)

We need 250 votes to get into the finals but the voting process is a bit…cumbersome. You must have a Facebook account to vote- it looks like they are using Facebook verification to keep people from voting multiple times.

It only takes about five minutes to vote and Zac has kindly written a step-by-step voting guide, complete with screen shots.

To vote you to go to https://www.missionsmallbusiness.com/ where you log in on the bottom right of the page.

To log in you have to use your Facebook account (this is their system to try and prevent people from voting more than once). First this one will pop-up:

Followed by:

Once logged in all you have to do is scroll down and then search for “Juniper Moon Farm”. Then finally you can vote for us!

Thank you so much for taking the time to do this. I know it’s kind of a pain in the rump! On June 30, 2012, the entries that have reached the 250 vote threshold will move on the finals. The winners will be selected by a committee, so we won’t know if we won for a while but it’s definitely worth going for.

We’ll keep you up-to-date on our progress.

Just a friendly reminder to slow dow when driving and be on the lookout for turtles crossing the road. Roads are one of the most prominent threats to turtles. I have stopped my car to move 10 turtles out of the road in the last week or so, and I’ve passed another handful that had already been hit by cars. Nothing wrecks my mood like passing a late turtle.

If you see a turtle in the road and have the opportunity to move it without endangering your own life, be sure to move it well off the road in the direction it was headed.

Photograph by Joel Eagle, who is always kind to turtles.