May 18, 2025 by Mae Lynn

Not all learning happens in a classroom

I would argue that most learning happens outside of the classroom. Or in conjunction with what is learned in the classroom might be even better. Should we learn the science behind metamorphosis? Absolutely! Then we should go in nature and watch it happen.

Last week the younger 2 kids were invited to a horse camp at a friends’ property about a mile from our home. This is the second horse camp they have participated in and they actually were able to help more this time. It was Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday from 9am to 3pm. So without them at home the older 2 and I were limited at home with school work. Many parts of our school day are done together as a family and I wanted to give the older two some “fun” times since the younger ones were having fun as well.
We are still transitioning our garden from winter to spring and one pasture was in desperate need of a cover crop. It was a beautiful week with cool morning temps and warm afternoons with a cool breeze. The older kids and I decided to spend the cool mornings working in the garden; weeding, spreading mulch and compost, feeding the chickens and goats with winter crops and planting spring crops. There is always something that needs to be done. We spent the warmer parts of the day for end of the year testing and of course, swimming.

The boys worked with Olympian Cody Miller at a swim clinic

We had monarch catterpillars on the Rue so we brought them inside to transform

October 1, 2024 by Mae Lynn

Fall is in the air

Most of our fall seeds are direct sow. We were able to start a few vegetable and herbs in pots.

I know I say this every time I write a post these days, but I really would like to be more consistent with updating this page. When I do have spare time (which isn’t often) I would rather be reading! My ultimate goal would be to pass this task on to one of the children as part of their school. Currently, they all have their head stuck in a book as well so we shall see.

As the days get shorter and the mornings and evenings get slightly cooler, we are slowly moving towards our sabbath time of year. We won’t fully rest from the land of course but we do look forward to a slower pace of life in the winter. We are fortunate to live in a climate that allows us to grow year round so we have cleaned out the greenhouse, mucked the stable and chicken coop for fertilizer for fall garden beds and started seeds. This coming weekend we will begin to direct sow for fall. Our peas are still going strong, we plan to harvest sweet potatoes soon and I am harvesting a gallon of hibiscus every few days. I went through the herb garden this weekend and collected seeds for saving, propagated herbs for overwintering and harvested most of the remaining herbs for herb salt. We have found this is the most economical way to store our herbs for winter. I do make herb-infused olive oil and I dehydrate some for seasoning. But herb salt is easy to make and easy to use in any recipe from dinners, to bread, to salad dressing. It’s quite versatile.

Herb salt with a variety of garden herbs

Don’t tell the other goats, but Reba is my favorite

That’s all I have for now so I will end with a random assortment of recent pictures. Enjoy!

I am always in need of more shelf space. I’m so thankful my husband enjoys building me more shelves and he gets creative with our small but cozy home.

My children had to wear shoes for the ropes course. They would have been much more comfortable in the air, barefoot!

April 15, 2024 by Mae Lynn

Starting fresh

Well, it has been a long year. A hard year. A sad year. But God is good and His mercies are new every morning. This land, this property, brings us so much joy. So this Spring we are spending our mornings, afternoons and evenings in the garden. Burying our burdens in the soil and watching new life sprout from our grief. While a tree falling on our shed might not seem like a tragedy to some and while we have dear friends who have experienced far more tragic situations, the limbs that crushed our shed changed our life in many ways. It was the iceberg that ripped open areas where we had been suffering through for many years. But as Romans 5:3-5 says “…but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”
We recently finished reading How to Grow a Florida Food Forest (David the Good) and have been browsing Great Garden Companions (Sally Jean Cunningham). Not only are we growing food this year, we are sprinkling flowers throughout the vegetables and fruits for beauty and pest control. Adam added outdoor string lights and some dear friends gave us a very unique burn pit for the garden. The garden is our happy place; we sit and talk here; we eat our meals here; we start our mornings here around a fire; we observe the insects here; we love each other here.
We recently returned from the Keepers of the Old Ways Festival and brought home many unique plants for our growing food forest, thanks to David the Good, Blue Springs Forest Garden, Mayim Farm and Flomaton Famous. We added Cuban oregano, cassava, tobacco (for the goats of course), loose leaf tea, Chaya spinach, pineapple guava, pomegranate, mysore raspberry, galangal ginger, African blue basil, yams, spoon tomatoes, ranch elderberry, Goji berry, lacos spinach, sweet bay magnolia, shell apple and Katuk.