Sharritt Christmas Letter 2024

 Dear Sharritt friends and kin,

[Roger drafted this letter in time for Christmas. Bev usually adds to Roger’s first draft and edits his wordiness and leaps of context. This year she dropped the ball. She is sending it out with only minor changes as a self-imposed consequence.]

We hope that this finds you healthy, wealthy and wise. We woke up to a glorious new day. Today the daylight is longer than yesterday. Do you ever wonder if early persons despaired around December 15th? They probably did. 

“The sun is going away! It will never get light again! We’re all going to die!” We don’t have an Amazon account so we can’t buy a seasonal affective disorder light to help us get through the winter!” 

We are three for three (see opening line). Unless you think that growing even more flowers at Roger’s age isn’t a wise thing to do.  Then we are two for three. A 666 batting average.  That would get us into the Hall of Fame.

Yes, we are growing more and more flowers and selling them to more and more people. Peonies were are big thing this year and why not? We are Hoosiers in the heart of Hoosier Land. Noblesville has a peony fest in May, and it has been growing leaps and bounds. So Flying Dirt Farms waded in to the mass phenomena that is Peony Fest where  people spend money at great rates for flowers that flopped over in the first big rain and Grandma just hoped they would still be good enough for Uncle Carl’s plot on decoration day. Good thing Bev is in charge of marketing. Roger is allowed to go to peony fest, but remain in the back of the booth, counting the money. 

Grace Selling peonies at the fest in Noblesville. If you'd like to help us at the 2025 fest, shoot us a message, and we can pay you with flowers!

Do you ever wonder why people would embrace the whole flower farming thing in a big way? Because we want to. To use a phrase from our earlier unprofitable farming experience, it is a “chicken we really want to catch.”We have also kept the phrase “million dollar zucchini” which means finding that one idea that will make us super rich. Still looking, but having some fun along the way. 

The lovely Miss Beverly led the charge into the embrace of selling flowers like a bonafide flower sales person and not a semi-break-even-what-are-we-doing-here enterprise. You may remember from our last episode; the lovely Miss Beverly was executing a well thought out plan of retiring, collecting part of her retirement while working fewer hours as a contractor and a little more at the flowers.  This plan was working great until the powers that be  felt like they could do away with PATINS, the organization that did such a good job helping students with disabilities access technology that helps them thrive in the classroom. 

So the lovely Miss Beverly hung up a shingle getting a few technology gigs and fully embraced the full time Ms. Flower Tsar personality. The extra attention to detail and “cultivation” of relationships with florists, farmer’s market customers and even online customers is really starting to pay off. We all get an endorphin rush when the Square app tells us someone from Texas just bought a dahlia tuber—cha-ching.

A mid summer wedding order

Do you ever wonder why we would stop giving Ben and Lisa; Grace and Chris their own paragraphs? Grandkids. For the lovely Miss Beverly, it was grandbabies. For Roger, it is grandkids. She was and always has been smitten. He is an old curmudgeon and waited to see how interesting they might be. So far, pretty interesting. 

Maggie may be a born litigator. Chris’ firm had a Christmas party that was advertised as having children’s activitie”s”. Maggie looked around and saw that there was exactly one activity. Words matter, and Maggie had a bone to pick with the lawyers in charge. Maggie has also been concerned as she learned that the British captured and burned Washington during the war of 1812. When I was in 6th grade I was, “do we have to remember dates for the test?” let alone 6 years old. She loves to invite acquaintances to Happy Birthday Jesus parties. And she loves sugary drinks but really hates the dentist. Maggie's friend story

Quinn loves his cars, qi che in Cantonese or che che in grandparent speak. The lovely Miss Beverly visits Chicago once a month.  Grandpa not as often but we are both up for a rousing reading of The Little Blue Truck over Face Time. When Quinn shows up for a call on our screen, he often skips any greeting and just gleefully repeats “Read, read, read!” Quinn loves Grandpa Roger's Dump Truck voice. 

Bev loves visiting Quinn’s Pilsen neighborhood with 3 coffee shops within walking distance, a lovely park, and delightful neighbors. She lucked out during her August visit and was there for the annual block party complete with food, friends and street dancing. Quinn loves the farm with its multitude of wheels, and opportunities to romp with cousin Maggie, or lead any willing adult around to inspect every single vehicle. Quinnie at the block party

Oh and by the way our kids are doing a wonderful job raising our precious grand kids. Remember that show 30 Something? If you do, you’re old. The kids are doing great.

Do you ever wonder if Viki and Veah will launch before Roger is an old curmudgeon?  Too late by about 40 years.  But despite Roger’s character they are launching just fine. Viki is in dental assistant school at IVY Tech in Kokomo. She was worried about radiology. It was hard and she kicked its butt. She took the initiative and read ahead in the book. She studied hard and she can now stick those stiff cards in your mouth, point the x-ray gun at your mouth and hit the button. She hopes to work for a year after graduating later next year and then go back to school for a dental hygienist degree. As she says, enough money for a big girl car.  

Veah is a senior sorting through options. Welding school; she likes it but doesn’t love it. Occupational therapy assistant school, a lot of twists and turns there, and an electrician apprenticeship, good money but Roger may call her Sparky. Point is, she is on the pad and the count down is on. 

Do you ever wonder if Roger still aging like fine wine? Not really. Fine whine maybe. He is starting to look up from the grindstone. There are still a lot of improvements to encourage Hoosier taxpayers to pay their fair share. However with the speed of implementing improvements within a bureaucracy, he is starting to realize his great grand children may be working at the department of revenue before those improvements come to fruition. All to say, he is looking forward to that day when he goes out and farms flowers all day long and doesn’t have to think about how to communicate what needs to be done to the field crew via a list and short incomprehensible videos.

We love your missives each year and all pictures. They provide a new layer of wallpaper for our refrigerator. From this the day after the shortest day of the year, we wish you a Merry Christmas with all of the hope and promise of acres and acres of beautiful blooms.

Take care.