June's Letter 2025

In which I recommend five books, share a recipe for a summer salad, and urge us to care for one of our own.

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Loves, this letter’s a long one - too long for email, it’s telling me. So do click over to Substack and read it there, and be sure to read all the way through to the P.S. There’s someone who needs our care.

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Sunday - Into the cooler bag went a dinner for the oven and two jars of homemade jam. Into the car with us came a very excited Maggie Mae (she was going to see her favorite boy). Across the state, we knocked on his door, found him waiting, for us, for food, for his (our) dog. She smothered him with love, then went into his bedroom and found some socks.

Monday - When, in the middle of writing a letter to a pen friend, you realize that words are making a mess of things, so you start to draw instead. That other way to say.

Tuesday - It all began with the color of a new linen blouse, the one with a ruffle around the collar. Then, the idea of Delft and Royal Copenhagen china tumbled down. Next came the image you saw in a book once of walls upholstered in burlap with an indigo stripe. You just never know when inspiration will come, where it’ll come from, or where it’ll land.

Wednesday - When your work wouldn’t let you go along with Maggie Mae and your man on their hike, and they came back through the door an hour later, all smiles, carrying a water bottle stuffed with as much wild lupine as it could hold. They’d brought the hike to you.

Thursday - When you’re lost in the aisle of the local bookstore, and you overhear a woman ask the seller if they have Go as a River. The seller says, as she hands the woman the book, that, yes, it just came out in paperback. As the woman hugs it to her chest with delight, you can’t help but say, “Ohh, you’re gonna love that book!”

Friday - From her arms to mine, a tote full of strawberry plants nodding their white blossoms and tiny green berries, abundance from her berry patch. From my arms to hers, full, second-year sage and oregano plants, abundance from my herb garden. The best of a gardeners’ exchange.

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Moments Lately

Spring river

Mother’s Day

Lunch date with a book

Jim Bridger

Girl time

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Reading Lately

The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elizabeth Tova Bailey. This book! This small, deckle-edged book! Loves, I’ve been waiting for months to tell you about this one. (I read it last fall, but it felt so much more like a spring/summer book, so I kept it waiting in the wings.) It’s a beautifully written observation of life and nature, namely that of the bed-ridden life of the author, and nature in the form of a woodland snail that inexplicably arrived in her room via a potted plant. You might think that reading about a severely ill person and a snail would be depressing, but you’d be wrong. This book is an unexpected journey, an experience that’ll leave you better than you were before. By the time you finish, you’ll be looking for whose hands you can press this gem into, as I did when I gave it to Jered’s girl, Grace, and when she did with her friend, and her friend did with her friend. By now it may be five or more friends down the line.

Raising Hare: A Memoir by Chloe Dalton. So this is fun! Go right now over to Friday’s post, and scroll down to the comments. There, a reader, Lisa G. (Hi, Lisa!), just last night, recommended this very book to you all! She had NO IDEA I’d already slated it for today’s June letter! If this happy turn of events isn’t recommendation enough to read this book, I’m not sure what is. Similar to Wild Snail, it’s also a memoir written by a woman who unexpectedly finds herself caring for, but mostly learning from, a wild creature. In this case, a leveret, or baby wild hare. This is crafted writing, beautifully told, one that you’ll not want to end.

Six Seasons: A New Way with Vegetables by Joshua McFadden. Yes, I’m recommending three books this month! Another of you sent me a message a couple months ago, recommending this one, and when I saw the cover, I ordered it right away from the library. Then, I ordered my own copy soon after. If you’ve ever been overwhelmed by the abundance of vegetables from your garden, your CSA share, or the variety at the farmer’s market, or, if you’ve ever felt stuck, always preparing the same vegetables the same way, this is your book. It’s arranged by vegetable, according to when they’re in season, so you can immediately find inspiration for the preparing the chard that might have overwintered in your garden, or what to do with the winter squash in February. In every page, author, chef, and owner of renowned Ava Gene’s in Portland, Oregon, Joshua McFadden imbues you with his passion for vegetables and how to bring out their best. In the beginning, he also delves deeply into what to have in a well-stocked pantry, and where to find it.

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Eating Lately

Creamy Cashew Chicken Salad

4 cups cubed cooked chicken

1 cup chopped celery

1/2 cup chopped green pepper

1 jar diced pimientos, drained

In a large bowl, combine the above ingredients, set aside.

Dressing:

1/2 cup mayonnaise

1/3 cup whipping cream

1/4 cup sour cream

3 tablespoons thinly sliced green onions

2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley

1 1/2 teaspoons lemon juice

1 1/2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar (or tarragon vinegar)

1 clove garlic, minced

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon black pepper

In a blender or food processor, blend the above dressing ingredients until smooth. Pour over the chicken mixture and toss to coat. Cover and refrigerate until serving time. Fold in 3/4 cup salted cashews. Serve over a bed of torn lettuce and garnish with additional cashews. Serves 6.

P.S. And very tasty wrapped with lettuce in a flour tortilla!

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Favorites Lately

• For wrapping things up (summer’s grilled steak tacos, breakfast burritos, or a creamy cashew chicken wrap)

• For weeding (How, how did I ever garden without this?)

• For innermost inspiration (The house that inspired so deeply, now on video)

• For burning at dawn (first light)

• For wearing under summery things (when bra straps are a no-go)

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P.S. Loves, I wanted to draw you all in together here for just a moment. Come in close. One of us, a reader and commenter who’s followed here for a long, long time, suddenly lost her husband of many years this spring. She said John was truly her rock, her everything. Could we all reach out and lift her spirits in the comments below? Send our love all the way around her in an old farmhouse in northern Maine? Her name is Karen.