And, yes, we make some amazing maple syrup on our New England farm every winter. For more details on how to make your own backyard maple syrup, peruse these posts.

DISCLOSURE: This post contains affiliate links. 

Before we dive into this topic of maple ID in the spring, I wanted to ask if you’d please consider helping me support sugarmaking education worldwide with every purchase of the SoulyRested Swag. You’ll find the latest designs right here (like the one I’m wearing here) .

I first got the idea to try my hand at springtime maple ID when I read The Sugarmaker’s Companion, which I reviewed here.

Michael Farrell explains that “approximately every four years, sugar maples will produce a bumper seed crop.” (p. 149) In other sources, I’ve read that bumper crops show up, on average, every 4 to 7 years. Since this is my first year of sugar maple spring ID, I have no comparison. So I truly don’t know if this year in New England the sugar maples were so easy for me to ID because it was indeed a bumper year or not. I guess I’ll have to share an update next spring.

Years later, I went on to write my own book about making maple syrup, specifically for backyard sugarmakers (Michael’s book is written for big-time sugarmakers, who are making hundreds of gallons of syrup a year). My book, Sweet Maple, is filled with all the information I learned doing it myself, though lots of trial and too many errors. Sweet Maple–available whereever books are sold–is also filled with all the details and recipes your heart desires if you’ve ever wanted to replace refined sugar with maple. Go here for a peek inside my book. Or order a copy for yourself right here.

But if you’re itching to make syrup but don’t have a grove of sugar maples, check out this list I’ve put together, after many years of research, of 31 trees that can be used for sugarmaking.

Look for the bright-neon-green buds.

Every glance out any window of our old farmhouse, every walk in the woods, and every long drive along back roads of the Granite State, I gleefully noticed the beautiful, bright-neon-green buds of sugar maples this time of year.

On our frequent long drives north on I-89 this spring I was shocked at how obvious–and prevalent–the sugar maple groves were along the long stretch of interstate.

In this video, I point out a few sugar maples in our front field.

Unfortunately, the brilliant neon green color of the maple buds isn’t very obvious in the video. This picture gives you a better idea of the true brilliance of the sugar maple’s spring buds, followed by an up close picture of the buds. (This is the tree that is behind me in the video, seen from another angle.)

Truly, the neon green color of the buds and new leaves of the sugar maple are so distinctive, once you start to see it from a distance, you will know a sugar maple from afar. The only other even slightly similar colored buds are the birch trees, but their white bark distinguishes them in a heartbeat. And birch trees are typically shorter and more round shaped overall than a maple tree. If you’re not certain if the neon green color you see is indeed a grove of sugar maples, getting a glimpse of the unique dangling clusters of blooms will reassure you.

Look for opposite branches.

More information for Sugarmakers.

Of course, simply knowing how to identify a sugar maple is just the first step towards amazing DIY, backyard maple syrup. Turns out, I’ve written about all the steps, right here on SoulyRested. Read about how to mark your trees that you want to tap, when to start gathering supplies, and how to drill your taps. Discover if you live where you can tap for sap, read 7 questions you should know the answer to before you tap your trees, and find out how to save hundreds with your backyard syrup making. Here I outline our complete step-by-step process of making syrup, and here I explain when to stop tapping maple trees. I also explain what is my favorite maple product we make on our homestead and why. (I bet you’ll be  surprised!)

But feel free to start your maple-infused reading right here. Read through and download my totally free, no-strings-attached ebook Maple Goodness by just clicking this link or clicking on the image of the book to the right.

Plus, you’ll want to keep an eye out for my new book that’s currently in production: Sweet Maple. In the meantime, download my two seriously sweet free eBooks about maple as soon as you sign up!–>

Take a second to save these posts for later.

I know I come across helpful pointers online all the time that I plan on coming back to, only to realize later that I didn’t save the information, or I saved it but don’t remember where I saved it. So I wanted to save you the 20-minute heartache of floundering around for this muli-part DIY syrup series when you need it. You can PIN each post right here.

PIN Part 1, (or read it here) about identifying and marking your trees in the fall and gathering some of your preliminary supplies

PIN Part 2,(or read that one here) about when, where, and how to drill your taps. This post also covers how to know if you live where you can tap successfully and 7 questions you need to know the answers to before you tap your trees.

PIN Part 3,(or read it here) about a reverse osmosis filter–what it is, how to build one yourself, and how it can save you hundreds a year in your backyard syrup making process.

PIN Part 4, (or read it here)–a step-by-step guide to boiling your sap.

PIN Part 5, a guide to knowing the perfect time to stop tapping your maple trees. Don’t make the mistake that I did and assume you should keep on tapping until the sap stops flowing! (Go here to read that one.)

PIN Part 6, a guide to help you ID maple trees, in every season. (Or read it here.)

It was a cold, difficult winter for me, and I’m not even talking about the weather… So I wasn’t sad to pack away our sweet, magical, syrup-making equipment and usher in a new season filled with neon green blooms.

Introduce a child to the joys of nature.

Once you got the hang of it, you may realize you know a child who would love identifying trees, as well as insects, flowers, birds, and more that they discover in nature. If so, glance at this post and discover what our family has been doing for almost 2 decades to encourage a love of nature study while creating an amazing family heirloom.

Important links.

Glance at my list of products we use here on our little sugarbush to make maple syrup.

And visit my friend Tim’s site for the most delicious maple goodness I’ve found anywhere–even bulk size syrup (Tim’s XXL is a one-gallon jug) at the best price I’ve seen anywhere.

More information about Maple Syrup Making: 

How backyard sugarmakers save hundreds of dollars every year

The complete list of tappable trees (there are 32!)

Learn how to make maple SUGAR 

Learn how to BAKE with maple syrup!

Out of the ground the LORD God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food. Genesis 2:9

If you enjoyed this post, you’ll love being a part of the facebook group I admin. Maple Syrup Making. It’s full of helpful maple enthusiasts like yourself from around the world.

If you’d like to know even more about how to identify a sugar maple, check out this little fb live video I made last fall. (And follow my page; I’d love to see you over there!)

And I have lots of maple-related highlights on my instagram page; hope to see you there too!

I’d love to connect!

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

That video I promised you, about why you should never take your eyes off of boiling sap.–>

PIN this for later! Just click the image below to pin this article.–>

I’d love to connect!

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

And please follow along!

And have you tried my a-MAAHZ-ing Maple Sugar Cookie recipe that’s in my Resource Library?

The post Identify Sugar Maple Trees in the Spring first appeared on Souly Rested.

DISCLOSURE: This post contains affiliate links. 

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.

 

I’d love to connect!

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

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.

DISCLOSURE: This post contains affiliate links.

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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Be sure to check out my Resource Page for even more great gardening, homeschooling, and homesteading products, books, and more!

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

The lake who stretches her clear waters out northward from the base of our slopping property supports an array of wildlife and picture-perfect sunsets…

Our magic little lake attracts majestic morning mist.

The fog surrounds any neighbors we happen upon during an early-morning skiing session.

Numerous aquatic flowers stretch out through the calm summer afternoon ripples while paddle boarders and kayakers enjoy the serenity.

And our little lake is a perfect backdrop for nature study in our homeschool.

But some inhabitants–the loons, whom we learned more about this summer–come in minuscule supply.

In fact, loons define the term “territorial bird” to an extreme. The 400 acres of water that our monochrome feathered friends call “home” each summer–the lake waters that stretches out northward from the base of our driveway–aren’t expansive enough to host more than one pair of loons.

The larger bodies of crisp, cool water that are spotted all across New Hampshire’s Lakes Region can support hundreds of loon pairs. In fact, alcoves on Lake Winnipesaukee alone provide nesting spots for more than 280 of the feathered, polka-dotted couples. By the way, if the curious lake name, a Native American name meaning “beautiful water in a high place,” sounds familiar to you, maybe you’ve watched  What About Bob?

But if you’re a local, you know Bill Murray never filmed anywhere near Winnipesaukee. (And the deception is compounded as you watch the characters refer to the town of “Winnipesaukee” throughout the movie, which of course makes no sense since the name itself means “water,” and everyone knows Winnipesaukee is a big, beautiful lake, not a small town.)  The truth is, the leaves were turning fall colors in New England that year before the producers were ready to start filming the movie, so a lake in Virginia provided the warmer temperatures they needed as a summer backdrop for Bill Murray and Richard Dreyfuss.

Another nearby New Hampshire lake, Squam, was truly the sight of a classic movie that even starred some of the very breed of birds my daughters and I studied this week. Mind you, you may remember Henry Fonda and Katharine Hepburn a little more than the loons, but all were important characters in On Golden Pond, filmed on Squam Lake in 1981. Squam doesn’t boast the hundreds of pairs of loons that the giant Winnipesaukee can claim, but it does home a few dozen more pairs than our diminutive lake.

Along with the fact that they’re not good at sharing a small body of water with other loons, these spotted fowl are also not good at walking. God designed their feet placement–far back on their body–to be perfect for swimming, but it happens to be impossible for walking. If loons are ever spotted on dry land, they are seen pushing themselves along on their bellies, which is surely why they were originally called “loons,” meaning “lame.”

But there’s nothing lame about their majestic, dashed and dotted, beauty on a lake.

And there’s nothing lame about nature study in our homeschool–at least not this week. Our local loons gave one daughter plenty of material for a new page in Our Backyard Book. If someone in your family would like to learn more about a bird in your backyard, feel free to enjoy this free printable resource–a Backyard Book page that’s truly for the birds.

Any day now the loons will be heading south, and we will move on to a new page for Our Backyard Book. Then nature study in our homeschool–and our next Backyard Book page–may focus on fisher cats, since my daughters believe a fisher cat was the eerie soloist screaming outside their bedroom window last night.

Be sure to follow along right here, on SoulyRested.com, for more nature study resources!

As soon as you do, you can snag another FREE printable that will get you started on an unbelievably easy, unlimitedly rewarding journey of nature study with a child. And even the least science-oriented parent (or grandparent) ever can dive right in.

And love it.

Really.

For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. Romans 1:20

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

Read More About Nature Study …

How we Create a Family Book About Our Own Backyard

Helping a Child Discover what They’re Passionate About

3 Simple Steps to Get Kids Excited About Nature Study

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Find out why SoulyRested is considered to be one of the Top 20 Must-Read Homesteading Blogs … year after year.

 

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

The post Looney Nature Study 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!

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

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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.

I’d love to connect!

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

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Just hover over this image for the Pinterest logo.–>

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 and even purchase your own here.

And please follow along!

The post Blooming With a Story first appeared on Souly Rested.

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. 

The post Loving science, even if you’re a Language-Arts-kinda mom first appeared on Souly Rested.

As a flower I’d never know before awakens in our woods, another circle closes.

You see, one year ago today marks the end of an almost 6-year process that led our family from suburbia to our humble New England homestead.

Taking the dirt road

One year ago today we became NH residents. We’re still learning our way around the state. We’re even still learning our way around our rocky, forested 14 acres. And we’re still learning our way around the New England dialect. Just last week I couldn’t decipher where someone lived–“at the end of the t-ah road.” (A phrase that is extra confusing for this southerner who has always used the phrase “blacktop” to refer to roads that were made of tar.)

But I’m thankful for the simpler, quieter life… the life that, indeed, often takes a turn onto a dirt road.

Discovering new flowers

Last summer, down back roads and up winding trails, I met a joyful plethora of new wildflowers.

Having always been intrigued by botany, I felt like a giddy child introduced to new forms of sugar as I discovered unfamiliar wild flowers on every mountain hike.

Although I grew up in the same time zone where we now life, I was 2 plant zones away. (If you’re curious what plant zone you live in, check out this great interactive gardening zone map.) So we added entries to Our Backyard Book often.

Keeping a Backyard Book

As my daughters have grown over the past 15 years of homeschooling, with my youngest now being 12, we still have a few staples that we love having randomly pop up in our days–taking school to the sand for impromptu beach days, baking instead of math once in a while, and adding to Our Backyard Book when the occasion rises.

Go here if you’d like to know more about this treasured book and how easy it is to create an heirloom that will forever be one of the most valuable books in our home. (Shhhhh… Never mind that my daughters were learning tons as they excitedly assembled it over the years.)

Many new botany pages have been added about New England wild flowers, but one flower never made it in last summer or fall, because we hadn’t yet seen the bloom.

We had been intrigued by the plant’s 3 large blankets of leaves that seemed to be one with the stem, providing a green, growing canopy for leaves and ladybugs.

The canopy was topped with bright red berries.

But somehow we were too busy unpacking boxes, painting, turning over and planting a garden, and refinishing our wide-planked pine floorboards to notice this intriguing plant before its flower’s ovaries swelled into berries and tossed its vibrant petals aside. I had not seen its green sepals symmetrically surrounding its vibrant burgundy bloom.

Until today. The 365th day of living on this land and walking these woods.

I still almost missed it.

But once noticed, the sweet trillium–or “Wake-Robin”–can’t be ignored.

And it can’t help but have its own Backyard Page. We used this helpful site to help us identify the wildflower then did a search for additional information.

How it got it’s name

We learned that a few rare Wake-Robins do grow in our native state, but since there are less than 20 known populations of them, we had never seen one before.

Here in our woods, the beautiful flowers abound.

The plant earns its name “Wake-Robin” by analogy with the Robin, with its red breast, because both act as heralds of spring. Unlike the Robin, the flower requires a scent to attract pollinators.

Since the Wake-Robin is pollinated by flies, well, it’s safe to say it doesn’t smell like roses.

Why you might not want it in a bouquet

The trillium flower emits the smell of rotting meat. Thankfully, it’s not an odor one will notice, unless they have their nose to the ground.

Yet there’s even more reason to NOT forage this flower…

Why you might not want to pick trillium at all

Many varieties of trillium are considered endangered and are illegal to forage in many states.

To learn about some flowers in your backyard with your own children, feel free to print and use this blank ID page.

Now I’m going to spend the rest of today–the anniversary of the day this 215-year-old homestead became our own–reveling in God’s goodness, planting my family one year ago today where we are deeply rooted in signs of his love and discovering beautiful new ones every day.

“Consider how the wild 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

Pin this for later!

Click on the image below to pin this post.

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 other supplies I use for maple syrup making (as well as gardening, homeschooling, homesteading topics, nature journaling, and more).

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 and even purchase your own here.

I’d love to connect!

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

And please follow along!

And have you tried my a-MAAHZ-ing Maple Sugar Cookie recipe that’s in my Resource Library? You won’t find this deliciousness anywhere else… until Sweet Maple is in print this fall.

The post What you want to know about trillium (before you forage it!) first appeared on Souly Rested.

This time of year always reminds me that amidst my feelings of sad separation spring joyous pride and immense gratefulness that God helped me prepare her for all that she is becoming.

And I’m glad I worried less about checking all the right “boxes” of our homeschool years and helped her pursue her passions as a child and young adult.

But I’m not gonna lie. That last summer having her at home. was a tough one…

One day during her last summer before starting her new collegiate life, she was out back, hitting around the tetherball with friends under a bright, powder-blue July sky. I was sitting on the wide, knotty pine floorboards of my kitchen sobbing, picking up chunks of a gray speckled, thick-walled pottery cup with her initials carved into the white, porous bottom. It had slipped out of my hand.

I broke the cup and started bawling

That broken cup was a symbol to me that I lost one more piece of her childhood.

I could never repair the 22 shards of the beloved pottery cup she had made so many years ago. Just as I could never again teach her a letter’s sound, help her balance herself on a two-wheeled symbol of childhood independence, or discover with her how a preying mantis lays her ootheca. Those days were spent, the details—like the pottery pieces that were strewn across my pine boards that July day— were scattered in roughly-remembered moments. Scribbled in childhood journals. Glued in disorganized scrap books. Randomly stashed away as faint memories.

My tears flowed. Unrestrained. Because I was alone in my kitchen. I didn’t have to be brave for her sake. She had lots of reservations about the looming last weekend of August, but she also eagerly anticipated the possibilities that lay ahead, on a college campus filled with potential for a young woman who was eager to excel as a Mechanical Engineer. So in her presence, that’s what I focused on, the potential. Alone, surrounded by a vivid, scattered symbol of her fading childhood, I focused on my loss.

An intricate, valuable part of our family was moving out. We would experience a great deficit. We wouldn’t be the same.

I cried many more summer tears, but then the day came to pack her boxes in the van, tie her bike to the roof, and watch her say goodbye to sad doggies that would be looking for her return every day until her first break.

I know it sounds crazy, but I really only had 2 goals for my daughter’s education. Read this post if you’d like to be encouraged.

I firmly believe there is a colossal hoax of parenting that needs to be debunked. Read this post, and breathe deeply.

I didn’t cry the morning she moved out

No tears tickled the corners of my eyes that morning. Instead, I noticed how perfectly suited she was for the adventure ahead. That little ringlet-haired toddler who struggled to learn balance without training wheels had grown into a capable woman who knew the precise way to bungie cord her bike onto the van roof.

The sweet elementary student who hand-sewed Christmas ornaments resembling the characters from Island of the Blue Dolphins, knew she would need a creative outlet in the midst of grueling academic challenges. Her sewing machine was packed and ready.

The little girl who loved to help her Daddy in his shop went on to build 120-pound robots with engineering mentors, and her final thought as the van is about to pull down the driveway that morning? She had to grab her adjustable wrench that she had forgotten to pack.

My final thought? I gathered a ziplock baggie of q-tips for her and laughed.

My future engineer is thinking tools, while her rather lame mom is thinking about the perils of ear wax.

But there were tears, for sure

On the campus that afternoon, there were tears. But not what I had expected.

They were tears of pride. My daughter who had homeschooled all her life, under my limited tutelage and incapable hands, had been accepted to a prestigious engineering school. I made endless mistakes from pre-K through high school. But even on the difficult days I tried to focus on my most sincere desire–to make learning fun and a life-long pursuit for each of my children. Now today, walking the paths of this worthy campus, she looked at ease. She belonged.

Tears of joy. The campus was smaller but nicer than our limited tour had revealed last summer, when we still had no inkling of where she would be applying, not alone attending. Her dorm room was diminutive but infused with natural sunlight through a wall of windows, and the furniture was new. She was friends with only one other freshman on campus, but she found him easily and met many helpful, friendly upperclassman all day long.

Tears of excitement. I had an inner assurance that deepened as the day shortened. God had led her here. Then he had provided scholarships and aid for her financial needs to get her here. He was standing ready to help with her needs tomorrow, when I wouldn’t be here.

I had doubted myself every day for 14 years

Over the last 14 years of homeschooling, I doubted myself almost every day. I worried that I would limit her potential because of my own limitations. But now I realize how beneficial my own insecurity and inabilities were. I had to find outside resources (FRC robotics and community college courses), and she gravitated toward mentors (not only for robotics but also for entrepreneurship, computer skills, and, yes, a pottery internship)–something a reserved, quiet young lady would not have done if somehow I could have taught her all these skills.

And in the end, God provided many people and resources to help my daughter grow into a young woman prepared to follow his plan for her life.

So here’s my advice for you, mom

My advice?

Worry less about stacking up academic achievements, and focus more on building a loving relationship…

Worry less about checking off all the right “boxes,” and help every child discover their passions and pursue them…

Worry less, and enjoy the moments more…

Just worry less.

Instead, bake cookies.

Hide love notes in Daddy’s sock drawer.

Cuddle and read a great classic book together.

On a morning when someone is up way too early, watch the sunrise together.

Be willing to toss aside the day’s grammar lesson when a child discovers a praying mantis in the back yard, and discover the joys of learning all about that little creature side-by-side with your children. Read all about how to care for it, build it a home out of a giant pretzel jar, crawl under trees and dig under rocks with your children for weeks to catch food for it, then sit glassy eyed in wonder as you all witness the miracle of her making her ootheca and laying thousands of eggs.

If you discover a fascinating insect, feel free to use my insect ID page I link to above to help your family research all about it. Our Backyard Book  is one of our family treasures.

Your children will eventually learn the correct placement of commas, but they will never forget the day mom helped them house and feed a pet praying mantis.

When you wanna cry (or scream)

On a day when you want to scream at your children, grab your keys and some snacks, and take them for a beautiful drive to somewhere fun.

Soon those precious events of today will be roughly-remembered, scattered moments in childishly scribbled journals and photo albums. You may even sit on your kitchen floor one July afternoon, when your hair is peppered with gray, sobbing, wishing you could relive this very day that you are walking in today, littered with difficulties but filled with blessings.

So every once in a while remind yourself that in just a few more tomorrows your child will be loading boxes in the car and headed for a new, far-away adventure without you.

You’ll never be able to recall and place together all the shards of little moments from average days that are scattered across the years.

You can’t relive one moment, but you can work hard IN the moment to enjoy the journey—difficulty, heartache, and all. And rest in the fact that you were part of God’s plan for your child, and everything HE does will endure.

“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God. I know that everything God does will endure forever.” Ecclesiastes 3:11

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 email.)

The post Shards of Little Moments first appeared on Souly Rested.