Garden fairies here! We have some stuff to write about, and we are garden fairies so we are going to do just that.
You will never believe what Carol did on the longest day of the year. By the way, we are garden fairies and the longest day of the year, the summer solstice, is one of our favorite days of the year. We have a big party to celebrate, starting just as soon as it starts to get dark, in the gloaming, as we call it. “Gloaming” – look it up and you’ll see that it is a magical time right before the sun really sets and night begins.
Anyway, we were going to tell everyone something. What was it? We are garden fairies… no, we already wrote that.
Oh wait, now we remember! We are garden fairies and we were getting ourselves ready to start our celebrations for the summer solstice when all of a sudden, we hear Carol mowing the lawn – in the gloaming! We are garden fairies and we did not like this. Why was she mowing so late? Oh, right, something about she kept thinking it was going to rain and it didn’t rain, so finally at about 9 pm she started to mow the lawn and she finished IN THE DARK at 10 pm.
Well, we are garden fairies, and we were concerned that Carol would accidently run into a garden fairy or a tree or something out there mowing in the dark, so we organized a bunch of fireflies, or lightning bugs as some people call them, to fly in front of her to light the way.
We think she liked that so we were glad to have done it for her.
The lightning bugs, or fireflies, are important friends of the garden fairies. We like to invite them to our parties so they can provide the lights. We are garden fairies; we supply the fun and merriment. It works well, all have a good time.
By the way, lightning bugs or fireflies are neither true bugs nor flies, they are beetles, members of the Order of Coleoptera. True bugs are members of the Order of Hemiptera, and flies are members of the Order of Diptera. These Orders are not the same as those fraternities like the Loyal Order of the Moose. We are garden fairies, we don’t know what those are all about, but we do know that insects have their own Orders, too, and are willing to take orders from the garden fairies, which they did last night when we ordered them to help light the way for Carol to finish mowing the lawn.
Everyone likes the lightning bug beetles by the way. They would not hurt a flea, of the Order Siphonaptera, but everyone hates Japanese beetles which really are beetles. Carol saw a Japanese beetle yesterday and she, well, we don’t want to say what she did or what she said, because we are garden fairies and it wasn’t nice, and we don’t repeat things like that. We’ll let Carol write about that later.
Anyway, back to the lightning bugs and us garden fairies giving them orders. Who are we kidding? We are garden fairies. No one obeys our orders. We just asked the fireflies in a very nice garden fairy way, promised them some special garden fairy spirit water when they were done and it was a done deal… we are garden fairies!
Submitted by Thorn Goblinfly,
Chief Scribe for the Garden Fairies at May Dreams Gardens
Dear Fairies, How kind of you to light Carol's way! It's summer for sure when the lightening bugs arrive and she will have even more opportunities to mow. Those pesky Japanese Beetles have arrived here~Bad news for sure. gail
Dear Garder Fairies,
Thanks for caring for Carol, she will return the favor when she can…like her miniture garden.
I had a neighbor once who really needed garden fairies. She used to mow with a head light strapped to her forehead. So nice of the fireflies to help.
Dear Garden Fairies,
We're so happy you're all safe and sound. In our garden, the people who work here always call to us and tell us they are going to be weeding and cleaning up. So nice of them to let us know. She leaves us bits of glitter and chocolate too.
It's so mice when the people who live over us know we're here and let us help them!
I am glad that the fireflies were willing to help light the way. It was good of you to ask them.
I am jealous of your lightning bugs since we don't have them here. I have good memories of them from growing up in Ohio. But I have BAD memories of picking Japanese Beetles out of roses so I guess I'll put up with the lack of lightning bugs id it also means no JPs.
I haven't seen any lightning bugs around this year yet. There never were really a lot around anyway.
So whenever I mowed my lawn getting really close to dark I had to deal with the little daylight that was left and not even the garden fairies could help that.
I sometimes wished garden fairies also would kick certain people in their rear end a bit. 😉
I have a neighbor who hasn't mowed his yard for at least 3 months anymore and his backyard looks like a combination of desert and dry prairie land. 🙁
Paula Jo
Where I live, we have neither fireflies nor Japanese beetles, so I guess it's a wash. I do wish we had fireflies. I remember them from my childhood back east. They were magical.
Deirdre
What do fairies wear to a 'Gloaming' party. I'll bet the neighbor's unmown 'lawn' has lots of dragonflies and lightning bugs.
Happy that the fireflies were willing to help light the way. Thats good
build chicken coop
Happy Summer Solstice, Thorin! I hope you and the other garden fairies had a great time, but didn't celebrate so much that you're still recovering:) Mr. Procrastinator (my husband) has often finished mowing after dark, and I always worry what I might see mown down the next morning. Fortunately, he has a light on his garden tractor in case the fireflies aren't out.
By the way, since the fireflies understand fairy language, do you suppose you could have a word with those Japanese beetles? Please tell them not to fly west.
The gloaming in my yard isn't full of fairies but mosquitos who could stop a lawn mower in its tracks. Its too bad too, because it certainly is a magic moment in the day.