Pull up a chair — we’re writing this one with sand between our toes.
This week, our whole family descended on St. Augustine, Florida. Kids, grandkids, all of us under one roof with the Atlantic out the back door. It’s loud and full and a little chaotic and we wouldn’t trade a single minute of it.
There’s something about stepping away from the ordinary that makes you see it differently. The farm will be there when we get home. The garden will keep doing what gardens do. But this — the grandkids chasing waves, everyone gathered around the same table — this is the stuff that doesn’t keep.
We’ve been thinking a lot this week about what it means to actually design a flourishing life. Not just tend it. Not just survive the season. But to stop long enough to notice what you’ve been building. To look at the people around you and realize — this is the harvest.
Sometimes the most purposeful thing you can do is step out of the routine. Rest isn’t wasted time. It’s the thing that makes everything else grow better.
We’ll be back at the farm before long, dirt under our nails and donkeys hollering at us from the fence. But right now, we’re right here. Fully here.
And that feels like exactly where we’re supposed to be.
— Jules & Lane
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This letter first went out to our readers in the Country Living Connoisseur on June 4, 2026. The full issue has the garden and farm kitchen sections too. Want the next one? Pull up a chair and join us here.
Written by
Lane and Jules Morris
Authors and University of Tennessee faculty writing from our farm in East Tennessee about gardening, the farm kitchen, faith and designing a flourishing life at any age. More about us
