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What is a spring peeper? To me, it’s a beautiful, much-longed-for, sign of spring.

What is a spring peeper?

A spring peeper is a small frog with a voluminous voice. Northern spring peepers live in the eastern United States up into Canada, while southern spring peepers range from Texas, to Florida, to Georgia. Somehow my whole mid-Atlantic life, before my family relocated to New England a few years ago, I never befriended these little guys or heard their beautiful melodies.

Maybe I didn’t live close enough to a marsh. (They do need access to a pond or swampy area for their tadpoles to prosper.) Maybe the sounds of traffic and suburban life drowned out their chorus. Or maybe I was just too busy to notice.

I was curious to know if indeed spring peepers live in my native state of Delaware, and in my research I stumbled across this resource of double-sided, printable ID cards about Delaware reptiles and amphibians that is too good not to share. Of course many of these creatures may live in your state too.

When we moved to our New England homestead in the spring, I kept thinking how loud and early the crickets were here. Early in the season, as well as early in the daytime, not waiting until evening to get boisterous. Then when my daughter spied an adorable little frog, and we excitedly learned about him, we discovered the true source of our serenade.

What can you do when your child discovers a new critter?

If you too find a few creatures in your yard–or at the park, or even in a parking lot at the grocery store–that you and your children would like to know more about, I have some painless suggestions to help you learn more about the creatures, use the experience to get your children almost effortlessly excited about science, and even create an amazing family heirloom in the process!

There are 3 simple steps to get kids excited about nature study.

1. Learn about your backyard creatures.
2. Use your discoveries to get kids excited about science.
3. Create an amazing family heirloom in the process.

Don’t wait.

One thing I’ve learned the hard way over the years? Truth be told, there must be one million and twenty things I’ve learned the hard way over the years. But when it comes to my child’s education, I’d have to say that one of the most important things I’ve discovered is actually pretty simple. To encourage a love of learning, parents need to help their child investigate the topics the child is naturally curious about. WHEN they’re curious about it.

For our family, this often meant we would research a particular water bird we’d spotted at the local pond, as soon as we got home after after our walk; or use our bird ID books to figure out what bird it was that one daughter just got a picture of in the tree outside her window; or scour spider ID web sites after witnessing the coolest web builder ever on a fence near our house.

Did that mean some days math lessons never got done? Absolutely. Did it mean we often never finished a full year’s worth of mom’s plans? No doubt. But today I have four daughters who not only love learning, but also know how to learn. A few missed math lessons or a little less penmanship work was worth the sacrifice.

Learn about your backyard creatures.

For our unidentified tiny frog that spring morning many years ago, we went to this great amphibian and reptile ID site called Froglife. Once we figured out my daughter was holding a spring peeper, we researched more online and in some of our favorite ID books we keep on a handy shelf at all times. (Scroll to the bottom if you’d like to see a list of our all-time favorites.)

Then one daughter pulled up a blank Backyard Book page, inserted a picture of the spring peeper (if we don’t take our own, we copy and paste one we like from google images), and printed it out. A few others started filling in the cool info we were learning, while it was fresh in our minds, and we all had some fun frog facts to fill Dad’s head with over dinner that night. Not to mention one more page to add to our book that is hands-down one of the most treasured in our home: Our Backyard Book.

So after we completed a Backyard Book page about our cute little peeper, I finally understood that the sleigh-bell-like “cricket” crescendo I was enjoying every day was, indeed, not crickets at all.

Use their discoveries to get kids excited about science.

We also learned that the scientific name for the froggie Casanovas of our marsh is Pseudacris crucifer. As a Language-Arts-kinda-girl, I never miss a chance at word root study, so the scientific name is always the first thing listed on our Backyard Book page.

For lots of ideas about getting kids (and yourself) excited about natural science when you’re a Languare-Arts-Kinda-Girl, hop over to my article on ProverbialHomemaker.

When you break down the peeper’s Greek-and-Latin-mix of a name–Pseudacris crucifer–it makes perfect sense. If you know that pseudo means “false” and crucis means “cross,” you have a pretty good idea of what’s on the back of every spring peeper. When my daughter discovered this itty baby peeper, sure enough, we were able to identify it by its markings.

Create an amazing family heirloom in the process.

The best way, ultimately, to get kids excited about science is to show them it’s practical, fascinating, and important. Creating our Backyard Book has certainly had all those effects on our family, and more.

. . . When they go back to it months, or even years, later to remind themselves about a creepy crawly they rediscover, they realize how practical it was to document what they learned in the past.

. . . When they flip through it for fun once in a while they are fascinated anew at the amazing facts they’ve learned over the years, right in a small square footage around their home.

. . . And when they pull it out to show a friend, who ooohhhs and aaahhhs and flips through every page, they realize how esteemed and truly important their hard work is.

Of course your family doesn’t have to limit this idea to a small area around your home. You can call your nature keepsake book “our nature discoveries,” and add to it whenever you discover a critter in a playground or parking lot, take a natural science field trip, or visit their great aunt in the country.

We have sections in our Backyard Book about insects, trees, flowers, garden plants, birds, mammals, and of course amphibians.

Our family’s Backyard Book has been an heirloom in the making for almost two decades now. It’s helped improve my daughters’ penmanship, interest in Latin roots, knowledge of botany, love for science, skills for organizing, willingness to touch all things slimy, abilities in art and photography, and, most importantly, desire and love for learning.

What else did we learn about spring peepers?

Along with its name-sake “x” on its back, the main identifying characteristic of a spring peeper is its song. Some say a chorus of spring peepers sounds like sleigh bells. But I think it sounds more like crickets. Plus, once our long winter finally thaws I’m elated that the frogs’ serenades are ushering in a much-welcomed spring. Needless to say, I’m not thinking about sleigh bells.

I recorded a little video about our spring peepers (click my link or see below), but you may not hear their chorus very distinctly. So you can also check out the NH state wildlife page where their song is recorded.

Like me, spring peepers probably don’t wanna think about winter any more either, since they were just almost entirely frozen during the long cold months. Turns out spring peepers can withstand a deep freeze during winter.

While most other frog species bury themselves deep under leaf cover for insulation from Jack Frost, spring peepers are one of only 5 species of frogs who face brutal winter temperatures in a different way. You see, they’re built with a natural ‘antifreeze’ in their blood. (Okay, it’s actually glucose, urea, and proteins. At least that’s what scientists think, but no one is sure how it all works… except for the frogs’ creator of course.)

Their distinguishing scientific name, the fact that they are frozen—but alive—all winter, and lots of other fascinating facts about spring peepers made it onto their page in our family’s Backyard Book. If you’d like to download and print amphibian ID pages of your own, just provide your email in the box at the end of this post. I’ve included many themed ID pages, as well as my popular ebooklet–5 Things You Should Know About Nature Study–in my subscriber library, which I am continually adding to as well. I’ll send you your personal password to the library right away, when you sign up below.

If your family decides to take on the exciting learning experience of creating your own Backyard Book, feel free to use the resources in my subscriber library, and by all means make sure to enjoy the journey because, as Thoreau pointed out, “The voice of nature is always encouraging.”

Find out why SoulyRested was considered to be one of the Top 20 Must-Read Homesteading Blogs of 2018 and then one of the Top Homesteading Blogs of 2019 as well.

 

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Our favorite Nature Study books that are on a special shelf in our home:

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The post Spring Peepers & 3 simple steps to getting kids excited about nature study first appeared on Souly Rested.

Edit to Add: I’ll be sharing in an upcoming post my seeding set up for this year. I’m super excited. We’re setting up shelving units with these amazing lights. But without a separate shelving set up, this is great for holding the lights.

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In New England, a gardener must know how to lovingly court seeds on long, cold winter months if she wants to be engaged in a sweet relationship with the garden on fleeting summer weeks.

A Disposition for Gardening

My daughters and I inherited our love of tending to the soil from my father. Dad was a good ole southern boy farmer.

In my mind’s eye, he spent every waking moment—of three out of four seasons—in his thin rectangle of a garden that ran along the far side of his postage-stamp, suburban back yard. He didn’t have much patience for my young, careless hands, but he let me work beside him enough that I knew the value of digging in dirt.

When I had a 1-acre piece of land to call “mine,” I immediately turned over large, square corners that were devoted to vegetables and fruits. By the time I had my own daughters with inept toddler hands, my dad’s patience had ripened. He welcomed their clumsy companionship into his haven of soil, seeds, and sprouting greenery.

Sewing More Than Seeds

Each new summer he thought they were just growing that year’s crop together. They’d snap crisp beans off the vines in the hot August sun. They’d quietly watch tender, golden squash mature until a late September afternoon. But Dad was sowing more than seeds; he was sowing a passion in my daughters for growing their own food.

His efforts are still blooming, well over a decade after he first taught them the value of soil packed under their fingernails and the promise of each new blossom discovered on tender stems.

While they soaked in knowledge of Japanese beetle control and plant pruning, my daughters talked to my dad and I about everything–from the insignificant to the monumental (although often they’re really one-in-the-same in the mind of a child). We tended soil and seeds and grew relationships.

As I worked beside my daughters, in Dad’s gardens and our own, I realized we needed to continue adding to Our Backyard Book with all the things we were learning in the garden in the summer. We had started Our Backyard Book as part of our nature study in our homeschool and often added to it all school year long, whenever we discovered a new tree or a new flower we wanted to know more about.

But on summer evenings in the garden we were finding new, unusual bugs. And we wanted to know if they were beneficial or harmful to our crops. The girls wondered about the differences between the variety of green beans we were growing compared to PapPap’s variety. They wondered why PapPap said we couldn’t plant certain crops beside each other and which ones were included in this strange phenomenon of cross pollination.

Robert Brault, an American author, says, “Why try to explain miracles to your kids when you can just have them plant a garden?” I’d also argue, “Why try to just teach your kids about botany and entomology when you can experience these sciences together?”  Then enjoy documenting what you learn.

And if your backyard isn’t big enough for a vegetable garden, or you’ve never had a garden and don’t know where to start, consider just growing a garden in large planters or a few choice flower pots. Enter and win in the giveaway below, and if you wind up with more seeds than you can use, share with friends.

If you’re serious about gardening, you wanna check out this post about the 5 reasons you may NOT want to compost.

And be sure to snag my free ebook, Beautiful Gardening, in my Subscriber Resource Library. Subscribe here.

Our Backyard Book

Pull together your own simple family notebook–we call it Our Backyard Book–and experience the miracles while you document them for yourselves.  

I’m in the midst of writing a comprehensive book that will give you all the ideas and resources and printables you could ever need to assemble this treasured notebook about your kids’ nature discoveries, about your backyard, about your garden, about not just garden plants but insects, mammals, trees, birds, and more. Right where you live. Follow along here for the latest updates, so you know when it hits the press!

For now, after you subscribe (just type your email in the box below or the one at the very end of this post), head right to my members-only resource library (I’ll send you the link and your own member password), and print your own Backyard Book identification page to get started.

So my young daughters added a new section to Our Backyard Book that summer long ago, for garden plants, and I designed new blank pages, and one more interest-driven learning experience began. One that’s still going strong today, even in my adult daughters. One I will be forever thankful for.

And read on for those 6 ingenious planter ideas you can use this spring to start your own seedlings. In the process, you may plant gardening passions in a child or grandchild while growing relationships on your own little plot of land, or with flower pots on your patio, or reusing citrus rinds in your bathroom…

{  Try These 6 Ingenious Planters  }

1. Paint chalkboard paint  on any old terra cotta pot to create the perfect place to grow your seedlings. Plant, label, and tend to the miracle!
2. Give disposable cups new life as ingenious seedling planters. You can buy a bag or–even better–reuse your cups from lunch-on-the-go or your morning coffee-to-go.
3. Keep your old toilet paper rolls for perfect seedling staters. My daughter did this for her corn seeds a few summers ago and it worked well for her. When it’s time to plant, you can place the whole roll right in the ground.
4. Stock up on plastic cups when you come across them on clearance. We got dozens of Valentine’s themed cups one end-of-February sale for 90% off. (Bonus, their sides emblazoned with hearts remind us of our love for gardening every January when we pull them out of the barn attic to start a new round of seedlings in them.)
5. Save your grapefruit rind after your juicy breakfast treat is done, and it can house your spring seedlings for a few weeks until it’s time to put them, rind and all, right into the ground. Citrus peels contain sulfur, magnesium, calcium, and more nutrients that provide wonderful compost material for your garden.
6. Reuse egg shells to start small herb seedings. Like the grapefruit, these provide great compost. Just plop the entire shell and tiny seedling right into your garden.

For the last two, you are a little limited. The grapefruit rind will get moldy if you plant in it too soon before transplanting and, of course, an egg shell is pretty small, so a seedling will quickly outgrow it.

While all of these ideas are free (or close to it), and some seem thoroughly ingenious, I have to admit we are partial to the ones that don’t get transplanted in the ground with the seedlings. I know the cardboard, rinds, and shells are biodegradable, but I never feel that in one life cycle they’re truly disintegrated. They seem to hinder the seedling roots from growing in my garden. But I have a feeling it has to do with the shorter New England growing season, or something in my gardening style, because I know other gardeners who rave about these options.

Please share in the comments if you’ve had great success with any of these seedling planter ideas!

Dad was excited when my daughter’s first few seed packets arrived in the mail in December–little packets of joy, ready to be planted together. Because he was a southern boy recently relocated to our New England farm, transplanting from seeds was going to be a new experience for him this year. I was curious to find out which type of seedling planter he favored. To his benefit but our huge gaping loss, my father went to be with the Lord on New Year’s Eve, before any seeds were planted. But his passion for working the land and getting dirt under his nails lives on in the rich heritage he planted in myself and my daughters.

“You cause the grass to grow for the livestock and plants for man to cultivate, that he may bring forth food from the earth.” Psalm 104:14

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The post Try These 6 Ingenious Seedling Planters! first appeared on Souly Rested.

But as the proud parent of an amazing young lady, you also need to make sure to take your daughter to a county fair.

This post contains affiliate links. Go here to read the full (ultra fun) legal disclosure about that.

Raising and homeschooling four daughters over the last two decades, I’ve thought a lot about girls and STEM. We’ve enjoyed wonderful resources, like TechGirlz, when we lived near Philly, and FIRST robotics that made sure my girls knew how awesomely fun Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) can be.

If you’d like to help your daughter build and program a robot you’ll not believe how simple it is with this fun robotics kit that you can even use to compete in FIRST robotics programs.

One daughter started a successful business at the age of 9; another ran a successful blog and helped friends build websites; one’s on her way to becoming an amazing Mechanical Engineer; and one will someday be rescuing marine mammals, once she’s completed her Marine Biology studies. All have spent hundreds of hours teaching middle school girls to program robots, and they know how to write some cool code. So, yes, my girls know STEM.

But my daughters’ love of STEM started long before they even knew what robots were. Their love of STEM started with natural science, with observing caterpillars and daises in our backyard, with meeting goats at a petting zoo. And, of course, agricultural communities–epitomized beautifully at local county fairs–are seeped in natural science. My point? Take your daughter to a local county fair! But just in case you need some convincing…

12 reasons to take your daughter to the fair

1-   She’ll feel like you took her on vacation, but unlike a day at Disney, a day at the fair won’t requiring auctioning off a kidney to afford it.

2-   She’ll see a different kind of princess–one who wears dusty cowboy boots, works hard, and loves every minute of it. One who, instead of waiting to hitch a ride with prince charming, calms and rides her own monstrous steer. Your daughter will learn that while it’s never easy, doing something well that she loves to do, will put her head-and-shoulders (maybe even bovine-head-and-shoulders) above the rest.

3-    She’ll learn that sometimes being in the right place–which for an agriculture-kind-of girl is in the barn–is not synonymous with keeping your nose clean. In fact, some of the best noses are often dirty.

4-    She’ll see real life and learn that sometimes it stinks (quite literally).

5-    But she’ll also learn that life can be sweet, thanks to God-given flavors, if we’re willing to do hard work (like Backyard Maple Syrup making…),  tap into the sweetness (like we’ve learned to do on our New England farm…), and sometimes wait many seasons.

6-    She’ll melt when a hairy boy with big ears flashes his deep-set, wide-spread eyes her way. Don’t worry, you won’t mind cause he’ll be a nice kid, or gentle guy who doesn’t give you any bull.

7-    She’ll understand where real food comes from. And if she understands this as a young girl, she may grow into an amazing homesteader, full of compassionate animal husbandry skills that she shares with her generation, which has long since strayed from such things. This I know first-hand. My then-7-yr old met a calf named Honeypot who melted her little heart at the Fryeburg Fair in Maine many moons ago. (She’s pictured with Honeypot in the pinable image of this post, near the bottom.) She is now a teen who runs a business to pay for her cow, chicken, rabbit, duck, and farming expenses. She is passionate about agriculture, homesteading, and responsible animal husbandry. And it all started in a little cow’s stall, at the fair. Read more about her in this CNN article. Or go here if you’d like some inspiration on how to inspire and encourage your young entrepreneur.

8-    She’ll see that good things are worth the hard work and the most beautiful accessories are not purchased at Kohls.

9-    She’ll appreciate animals and understand they’re more than the sweet eyes and big ears that make her melt. She’ll understand that caring for them is a lifestyle. A hard, messy one that many people seem to love. Because there’s no “behind-the-scenes”at the fair. You see the tired caregivers who fell asleep on a hard barn floor, on top of a  bale of hay. You smell the piles of manure that need to be dealt with daily. And you witness the sweet-tempered cow who follows her beloved girl. A view I now have every day, on our homestead.

10-    She’ll see agile women–of all ages–winning competitions, earning ribbons, and carrying trophies. Not because they walk fashion runways or run long-distance. But because they help others–from animals who need their care, to people who need the food they raise.

11-    She’ll witness the value of teamwork, from two young oxen learning to pull on a yoke, to beautiful draft horses doing amazing work side-by-side.

12-    She’ll learn a new way to define and appreciate “adornment.” Not the latest fashions on supermodels, but worn leather gear on a beautiful team of drafts and the patina on an antique tractor that still does the job, after all these years.

So run, don’t walk, to your local fair with your daughter. She will be a better woman because you did. And there’s no better place, in my opinion, to spark a young lady’s interest in natural science, which may naturally lead her to more STEM involvement. There’s no doubt that this world needs more bright young women who are interested in all areas of STEM, including agriculture.

If you like this post, you might like reading about my own childhood memories of sustainable living and the history of New England Old Home Days.

More Encouragement For You:

Secrets to helping your child become a successful entrepreneur

Help your child start a blog like a pro

Why I only have two goals for my daughters’ education

How to encourage philanthropy in your child

Four questions successful parents ask themselves

Find out why SoulyRested was considered to be one of the Top 20 Must-Read Homesteading Blogs of 2018 and then one of the Top Homesteading Blogs of 2019 as well.

Glance at my Resource Page if you’d like to get a glimpse of all the supplies I use and recommend for everything from gardening, to homeschooling, to chicken care, to nature journaling, to maple syrup making.

 

 

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To find me in some other neck of the woods, just click any (or every!) icon below:

 

And please join in on my resource library. I’m often adding sweet bonuses.

The post 12 reasons to take your daughter to the fair first appeared on Souly Rested.

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While I realize that Sweet Summer can only offer a few more stray weekends of her long, warm days before she tucks them away for another year, I allow myself to start opening my tight grip on these fleeting warm New England days. In truth, I’m ready for a new season.

Spring brought unsettling news that forced this daughter–a daughter of a cancer patient–to cling to God’s promises.

Summer ushered in disappointments that brought this momma–a momma of a brave daughter in dismal pain–to her knees with a tear-soaked, downcast face.

So I’m ready for a new season. Both my mom and my daughter are under the care of compassionate medical professionals who can help them, we are all experiencing hope and growth, and I’m noticing beauty in my days again. An imminent season that promises autumn hues on every branch and crackling color under every footstep sounds just about perfect.

So when Tauna asked me to share some ideas for fun fall foliage activities with kids, a dozen ideas of things to do with autumn leaves spilled out into my contributing post over on Proverbial Homemaker this week. There’s inspiration for everyone–from a photography challenge to a Thankful Tree, from nature journaling ideas to tradable art card inspiration–so take a peek.

Any day now, fall leaves will be precariously positioned on sumac stems and beech branches…

We’ll harvest our apples, finish canning our garden surplus, And enjoy cooking over a warm fire.

Check out these dozen things to do with autumn leaves and enjoy the beauty of fall with your family. Join in a jubilation with creation itself, who is rejoicing before the Lord, as King David described it in Psalm 96.

That’s right, by pressing some fall leaves, taking some breathtaking pictures, or making some autumn art cards with your kids, you’re joining the party.

Charles Spurgeon points out, “Then shall all the trees of the wood rejoice. He does not say, let them rejoice, but they shall do so. ” The party’s happening folks. We’re invited. Join in.

Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice; let the sea roar, and all that fills it;
let the field exult, and everything in it! Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy
before the Lord... Psalm 96: 11-13

If you’d like 5 Simple Tips for Amazing Fall Photos, be sure to check out this post by clicking the photo–>

Glance at my Resource Page if you’d like to get a glimpse of all the supplies I use and recommend for everything from gardening, to homeschool, to nature journaling, to maple syrup making.

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Many readers often ask what camera I use to take the images you find here on SoulyRested. I love my Nikon; you can read more about my camera on my Resources page and even purchase your own here.

Glance at my Resource Page if you’d like to get a glimpse of all the supplies I use and recommend for everything from gardening, to homeschooling, to chicken care, to nature journaling, to maple syrup making.

And hop over here to find out why SoulyRested was considered to be one of the Top 20 Must-Read Homesteading Blogs of 2018.

I’d love to connect!

To find me in some other neck of the woods, just click any (or every!) icon below:

If you already ARE a subscriber, just hop over to the Resource Library here and enter your personal password. (If you don’t remember your password, no fear, we always include a personalized reminder in every Thursday email, “Hard Work, Simple Joys.”)

The post 12 Things to do With Fall Leaves first appeared on Souly Rested.

I think Robert Brault, an American operatic tenor who must create melodies in a garden as beautifully as he does on stage, answered that question well with a query of his own: “Why try to explain miracles to your kids when you can just have them plant a garden?”

A few days ago, I shared 5 Simple Steps to Garden From Seeds, and today I’m sharing 5 Tips for Gardening With Your Kids over on Proverbial Homemaker.

There’s nowhere I’d rather be than in the garden with a daughter. Or two. Or all four. We share our thoughts, anxieties, and daydreams right there between the beans and the tomatoes.

Plus, if you plant a garden together, you can reap the harvest together. You can even preserve it and enjoy it all year round. You can grow and preserve your own herbs. (All you need is a little patience and a few paper bags. Really. Check it out here.)

You might even have enough veggies to can a few jars.

Or enjoy some quick-and-easy berry desserts I posted last week. Better yet, you can preserve your fruit.

Then the cold snowy January night that you pop open a jar of jam and slather it on biscuits, you’ll enjoy the rewards of gardening with your kids even more. (Be sure to snag the Amazingly Easy Freezer Biscuit Recipe I shared on a previous post.)

If you need any more inspiration, glance at these 10 Reasons to Make Sure You Play in the Dirt this Summer and–if you do nothing else–be sure to join me over on Proverbial Homemaker today for some inspiration!

Then go dig in the dirt somewhere with someone who looks up to you, someone who just might want to share with you their thoughts, their anxieties, or their daydreams while you’re gardening together. Here on our homestead, I can honestly tell you, we plant much more than seeds, and we harvest much more than produce.

In my far-from-professional opinion, I imagine gardening has always had that effect.

Take a second to read more over on Proverbial Homemaker, and be sure to snag the FREE PRINTABLE I uploaded there for you!

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Do you follow along on SoulyRested.com? Just click “FollowThisBlog” in the right-hand column, and you can snag a FREE 7-page, chock-full-of-information printable that will get you started on an unbelievably easy, unlimitedly rewarding journey of nature study with a child. The free printable even includes another ID page! (This one is for studying mammals.) And even the least science-oriented parent (or grandparent) ever can dive right in.

And love it.

Really.

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Another post you’ll like–>

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The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail. Isaiah 58: 11

“Build houses and live in them; and plant gardens and eat their produce.” Jeremiah 29:5

Find out why SoulyRested was considered to be one of the Top 20 Must-Read Homesteading Blogs of 2018 and then one of the Top Homesteading Blogs of 2019 as well.

 

I’d love to connect!

To find me in some other neck of the woods, just click any (or every!) icon below:

The post 5 Tips for Gardening with Kids first appeared on Souly Rested.

This year, the biggest lessons we’ve learned revolve around growing a garden from seeds. In New England, a gardener must know how to lovingly court seeds on cold winter months if she wants to be engaged in a sweet relationship with the garden on fleeting summer weeks.

While this skill, imperative in a northern climate, was never something my southern-boy dad had to master, he–not unlike my own daughter–learned a lot from a grandfather.

Every day his father, Jim, walked off in the dark of the West Virginia morning, toting his lunch pail and heading toward the Potomac River where he took a little boat to the other side and walked over the Randolph Tunnel toward the B&O tracks. Jim certainly knew how to tend the warm summer soil, but his main goal was to plant a little nest egg. So he walked far and worked hard to provide a small bi-weekly paycheck by maintaining the steam engines’ tracks and keeping them clear of rocks, which were continually descending down the surrounding cliffs. Meanwhile his father and his only still-at-home son (my dad) maintained the crops in the fields to provide the family’s food.

Take a second and snag a free copy of my book, Beautiful Gardening, for free, in my Resource Library.

I’ve absorbed some of my father’s and grandfather’s gardening knowledge. Working barefoot-to-barefoot beside my daughter, who has inherited and then compounded my father’s love for agriculture, I’ve learned even more. She used to bring home plants from PapPap’s garden in cottage cheese containers and plant them with a plastic shovel.

More than a dozen years later, and she loves playing in the dirt even more today than yesterday. This winter she grew over 4 dozen different plants herself from heirloom seeds, and now our garden is teeming with her efforts.

Joyfully, our kitchen is also teeming with her efforts, and there too she is strongly influenced by many wonderful previous generation’s of impact. (I wrote about that in this post, where I also share my Grandma’s amazing from-scratch pie crust recipe and my Aunt Jeannette’s deliciously amazing strawberry pie recipe, that my industrious teen will soon be making with her own sun-warmed garden-grown strawberries.)

5 Simple Steps to Garden From Seeds

1. Spray your seeds.

   When you plant seeds in pots in cold winter months, use a spray bottle to water them, never a watering can. The strong flow from a watering can will cause seeds to move in the soil, pushing them too too deep or raising them too shallow. Excess water may also cause seeds to rot. But the gentle, steady, evenly distributed mist from a spray bottle is perfect hydration for tender seeds.

2. Prepare seeds for the summer sun.

   When late spring arrives, 4-7 days before you’re ready to transplant your precious green miracles in the garden, set young plants outside, for about 1/2 an hour at a time, in the direct morning or early evening sun, to let them get used to the heat gradually.

3. Shade young plants from direct sun.

   Once they’re in the ground, offer young plants some shade during the hottest part of the day, for the first week or so. Even after your gentle preparation, non-stop, direct sun will be hard on the tender plants. This year, we used our tomato cages and ladders as framework for a haphazard, funny-looking, yet effective labyrinth of old-sheets-and-drop-cloth tents that we could easily take down in late afternoon and put back up the next day before the sun got too hot.

4. Plant the leggy ones nice and deep. 

   If you look closely, on some of your young plants, you’ll notice tiny root hairs growing quite a distance up from the base of the plant. Go ahead and plant all those root hairs in the nutrient-rich soil, to help the plant get all the good minerals, as well as important stability, that it will need.

5. Document everything!

   My daughter keeps a detailed gardening journal; we’re always glad she wrote down specific details that we would have otherwise forgotten many growing seasons later. And we have a section in Our Backyard Book just for garden plants. We add new pages whenever we discover a new variety of tomato plant we love, or when we consider adding a we’ve-never-grown-this-before vegetable to our garden and want to research it before we plant it.

In my next post, I’ll share 5 Easy Ways to Enjoy Gardening With Kids This Summer. And if you liked this post, you’ll love my FREE 7-page, chock-full-of-information printable that will get you started on an unbelievably easy, unlimitedly rewarding journey of nature study with a child. Just follow along here on SoulyRested and you’ll have full access to my subscriber library, which includes my popular ebook, 5 Things You Should Know About Nature Study, along with a free garden plants printable and so much more.

If you’re serious about gardening, you wanna check out this post about the 5 reasons you may NOT want to compost.

For now, I’m gonna go join my dad and daughter in our happy place.

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When I think of Irises I think of a day when there were three guys. And three flowers. But no one told them which flower was for which guy.

One white rose and two violet irises arrived that sunny June morning at the church on the hill with the tall white steeple. They had been boxed and delivered to the groom and his two groomsmen. For some reason, at least according to my husband’s memory, they just dealt out the flowers randomly, not giving much thought to who should wear the most unique flower.

All I know is that in my elated wedding stupor, standing in the outdoor courtyard, in front of the pastor, I never recognized the mix up. Holding hands with the man I’d been holding hands with for seven years, but this time doing so with rings and a lifetime commitment exchanging between us, I remember thinking how beautiful his boutonniere was in the morning sunlight. How glad I was that I picked the stunning periwinkle iris for him.  (Never mind that I had actually picked a single white rose, which was gracing one of the groomsman’s lapels.)

It was a fun memory to share with a daughter this week, who enjoyed musing about how clueless men can be over certain issues.

She and I, both with dirty knees and dirtier fingernails, were weeding the rows of beans and corn, with the promise of irises nearby, just beyond the garden fence. And the 23rd anniversary of that day of mixed-up flowers and a far-from-perfect-but-yet-so-blessed union was looming only days away.

I’m sure Siberian Irises have graced many other grooms over the 500+ years since they became a cultivated bloom.

Their name comes from the fact that they were first collected by monks in Siberia in the Middle Ages. They were grown in monasteries and distributed around Europe.

I’m thankful that someone once cultivated them in bucolic spots around our 200-year-old farmhouse.

They’re perfect expressions of a beautiful commitment I made to my high-school sweetheart who has humored my cravings for reading, writing, and chocolate for 23 years, as of tomorrow.

And they’re vibrant amethyst reminders of God’s provision…“Consider how the flowers grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will he clothe you!” (Luke 12:27)

You may enjoy my Open Letter to my Mother-in-Law as well.

Then there’s what I told my Father-in-Law too.

And I wrote about our marriage and how it survives the 3 Secrets Old-Farmhouse Owners Might Not Tell You here.

A Dozen Fun Facts About Irises

1- Irises have been cultivated for thousands of years.

2- They’re predominantly found in dry, semi-desert, or colder rocky mountainous areas–thus I now know why they survive on my New England homestead. (Although other habitats do include grassy slopes, meadowlands, bogs and riverbanks.)

3- There are almost 300 different species of iris.

4- The general name “iris” is from the Greek word for a rainbow, which is also the name for the Greek goddess of the rainbow, Iris.

5- Irises have long, erect flowering stems that may be simple or branched and solid or hollow.

6- Flowers consist of three upward turned petals (known as “standards”) and three downward turned sepals, which actually look like petals (known as “falls”).

7- The downward sepals (“falls”) are the “landing pads” for pollinators. Notice how the falls on an Iris have bright lines (called “guide lines” or “nectar guides”) leading an insect right to the flower’s nectar.

8- A single Iris flower only lasts about three days.

9- Once the flower has died, the ovary produces a seed capsule, which opens up in three parts to reveal the numerous tiny seeds within.

10- Indian and Egyptian ancient cultures used Iris rhizomes for medicinal purposes and for making perfume.

11- During the Middle Ages, Irises became linked to the French monarchy, and the Fleur-de-lis eventually became a national symbol of France.

12- Apparently, the iris is the flower of February birthdays.

I’d Love to Share my Resources With You

If you too have a flower in your backyard that’s blooming with a story, or simply one you would like to get to know a little better, please follow along here on SoulyRested. You will immediately gain access to my subscriber library, where I have a very helpful blank identification page you and a child can use to record all you want to learn about your backyard flowers.

In fact, I offer a wide assortment of nature ID pages in my subscriber library. Because I thoroughly believe that a child will be mesmerized by creation for a lifetime if they are immersed in nature investigations at a young age. 

My daughters and I have loved making the acquaintance of many flowers, trees, birds, mammals, and amphibians in our back yards over the years. In fact, one of our family’s most treasured projects ever–it’s become a family heirloom really–is now 13 years in the making and still going strong: Our Backyard Book. 

And Here are More Nature Study Resources for Your Family

If you’d like to read more about our family’s unique way of memorializing all we learn about in nature, you may like these posts:

One about heart-shaped lessons learned from white tailed deer that visited our gardens.

Another about the many reasons everyone should take time to play in the dirt.

One of my favorites, about spring peepers and 3 Simple Steps to get any kid excited about nature study.

There’s this one filled with neat Loon facts and details on how we document our findings.

And, of course, some all-natural bug spray comes in handy when you’re knee deep in nature studies.

I’m Immensely Thankful

But, as thankful as I am for our family’s love of nature study, I’m immensely more thankful for my husband who has taken on the project of humoring me as a lifetime project. He may not be a boutonniere connoisseur, but not unlike that iris I admired on his lapel in the church courtyard that warm June day, he’s colorful and truly perfectly placed by my side.

Happy Anniversary to my high school sweetheart.

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Glance at my Resource Page if you’d like to get a glimpse of all the supplies I use and recommend for everything from gardening, to homeschool, to nature journaling, to maple syrup making.

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I’m learning to enjoy a lot of things these days that are… well… pretty unenjoyable.

Cow patties, for example.

They smell awful.

But the lady who produces them–Scout, our sweet dairy cow–also produces wonderful milk, which in turn helps me produce some amazing ice cream. So I’ve learned to enjoy cleaning out her stall. To be totally up front, though, Scout belongs to my 15-year-old farmer, Kayla, who saved up for Scout, and her hay, and her fencing, since she was 9. So I honestly don’t do the bulk of the cow-pattie removal. That of course also makes it more enjoyable for me. (If you’d like to meet Kayla and all of her farm animals, plus get a little insight into her entrepreneurial spirit that helps run our homestead, take a peek at Kayla’s endeavors here.)

So studying slimy amphibians is a walk in the park after doing the hard work around a farm. But this whole homesteading life is still new.

So it’s still an exhilarating sensation to me (aka a born-and-bred suburban girl) to slowly pull giant, two-story-tall doors across their squeaky track. It’s an amazing thing (at least to a mid-atlantic, grew-up-in-a-chain-linked-fenced-tiny-yarded-development kinda girl) to say “I… Own… A Barn.”

But last month, while closing those difficult doors, I had an extra treat. I was serenaded with a soothing song. The spring peepers were back in our neck of the woods, and in actuality of course the males weren’t singing to me, but to the females, doing their best to attract one with all their melodious charm.

So over the next few days we pulled out some books (see my list here for our favorite you-can-hold-it-in-your-hand, real book resources for nature study), pursued some websites, and added a new page to Our Backyard Book—a treasured homeschool heirloom that I’ve written about many times before.

If you have an aversion to “slimy things,” Mom, you really need to read my post that Tauna asked me to share on Proverbial Homemaker today. If you still believe that old wives tale about getting warts from frogs, trust me, you’re safe. If, on the other hand, you think kissing a toad will turn your husband into prince charming, well, I can’t help you with that one.

But I can help you with:

5 reasons you really should study amphibians, slimy or not…

3 simple steps to start your study today…

8 of my family’s favorite nature study books, and

my FREE, printable amphibian ID page that you can enjoy completing with a child who would like to learn about slimy amphibians… in fact, I bet you’ll wind up enjoying it too.

So take a second to peruse my amphibian-affiliated musings as a contributing writer over on Proverbial Homemaker today. I’m gonna go clean a cow’s stall now… and enjoy it.

Meanwhile, if you and a child or grandchild try out my FREE printable amphibian ID page please let me know some slimy facts you enjoy learning together!

The post How to Enjoy Learning About Slimy Amphibians first appeared on Souly Rested.

Zusak is right. When dropped gently–like summer-day raindrops–or strung together painstakingly, on tip-toe, the perfect combination of words rumble through one moment of our life and never leave. But did you notice what Zusak did with his allegory? Much to my joy–since I’m a language-arts-kinda girl who feels inadequate teaching science to my homeschooled daughters–Zusak combined natural-science and language arts beautifully. 

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Yesterday, our usually quiet, docile fields were alive with noisy chaos.

Teams of people were working to cut down trees and clear a pasture for a wonderful young dairy cow, on it’s way. But amidst the chainsaws and sawzalls buzzing and branches and voices rustling, one daughter heard the faint cry of a different baby. Maybe one of the recently downed trees had held his home.

She followed his petite song and found the sweet little fledgling hiding under ferns on the forest floor.

She gently cupped her hand around his meager frame and searched for me, knowing I would be her enthusiastic comrade, eager to do whatever we could for the tiny crooner in her palm. Eager to know how to help a baby bird who had lost his home and his momma.

She held him gently while we researched how to help a baby bird.

We learned we would only be doing him harm if we attempted to care for him, and (we were surprised to discover) it’s illegal to care for a wild animal.

We also read that, contrary to what we had thought, our scents would not deter his parents from still caring for him, and if we could return him directly to his own nest, that would be best.

Update on the field-clearing, fence-raising efforts: It was a work of love, for sure. But well worth it, considering these beautiful current inhabitants. (Click there to meet Scout and Selah, but be forewarned, your heart might melt at the sight of a young new cow momma loving on her beautiful newborn calf.

Since whatever tree must have housed his home was now being cut into firewood, we decided the best solution was to make him a new home and pray his momma would find him there. So next we researched how to make the best human-attempt at a makeshift nest. We found a container with drainage holes in the bottom and lined it with soft material: yarn and tissues.

Then we placed him securely in a tree near where she found him.

We watched for a while, then walked away hoping our diminutive efforts would be enough.

I was thankful. Thankful for her sweet caring instincts when confronted with the disadvantaged. Thankful for a chance to, once again, study nature with my daughter–the same little one who would proudly fill up pages in our family’s Backyard Book (especially ones about birds) and traipse with me through the woods with her journal and pencil in hand on our Nature Journaling days.

Thankful for my now-grown daughter’s decision to trust me with her concern; ask me to again learn with her, side-by-side; and allow me to work with her to devise a solution. Together.

This morning, our make-shift nest was empty.

Hopefully his song reached his momma’s ears… Hopefully he asked for her help… And hopefully he’s soaring high on his own strong wings today.

Click below to hear me explain what we did when we found yet another tiny baby bird under a tree, near our farmhouse.

If you’d like to download my free ebooks, including one all about nature study with a child, simply sign up for my weekly-ish enewsletter here then download anything and everything you’d like from my loaded Resource Library.

“Point your kids in the right direction—when they’re old they won’t be lost.” Proverbs 22:6 (The Message)

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If you already ARE a subscriber, just hop over to the Resource Library here and enter your personal password. (If you don’t remember your password, no fear, we always include a personalized reminder in every Thursday email, “Hard Work, Simple Joys.”)

The post How to Help a Baby Bird Who Has Fallen From His Nest first appeared on Souly Rested.