Tag Archives: native plants

A girl wearing a long blue dress walks along a wooden boardwalk winding through trees and shrubs.

we built a boardwalk

Earlier this year I wrote about how much work we were doing on our two acres of land to turn it into a native wildlife habitat.

Unfortunately I haven’t been much help lately, largely due to the infamous back injury, but also due to the fact that I cannot comprehend how Mom and Riley have been working through the hottest, buggiest, most humid days of the year.

I got burnt out doing a lot of deep, grueling poison ivy work early in the year, and I found that I much prefer doing jobs like building stonewalls and building dead hedges.

new magical spot unlocked 🔓✨

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A tall green fern leaf sits next a small stonewall.

i built a stonewall

I’m the kind of person who has the audacity to simply do what I want.

Have I ever built a stonewall before?

No.

Was I confident that I could do so?

Yes.

(and yes, this project happened before the infamous back injury)

we love our little stonewall, and we also love the baby shagbark hickory tree (Carya ovata) that’s growing just behind it 🌳

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A straw hat with blue flowers laying on it sits aesthetically on a white dresser.

summer of 2026

I’m not gonna lie: this summer has been the opposite of relaxing for me.

But I’ve had an abundance of work opportunities and pet-sitting jobs, which I’m so grateful for. Because of the multiple-week jobs, I was able to save enough money that I shouldn’t have to worry about paying car insurance and taxes next year 🎉

As a small business owner who’s never had a traditional job, it’s always an extra big sigh of relief when I confirm that my work is continuing to financially sustain me.

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A tray of plants sits in the grass

a busy spring

April and May have been a blur of flowers, birds, hard work, and poison ivy.

As mentioned in a previous post, we’ve been doing some pretty extreme work on our property, so here’s a collection of photos from the last two months.

Mom finally brought the poetry magnets back out, so our fridge is currently full of them

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A stream flowing in between snow-covered rocks with the sun shining through the trees,

march wrap

Living in New England, I think that March might be the most dramatic month of the whole year.

On the third of March we went “hiking” and ended up clumsily tripping through three feet of snow, but by the end of the month the ground was clear, and flowers were blooming.

You can watch my 60-second March wrap here!

A pool of water surrounded by snow.
A girl holding a large camera looks out of a car window.

March 3rd, we definitely underestimated how much snow would still be at our local park; watch my spring vlog here!

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the meadow

This year my family and I decided to let our front yard grow up into a meadow…and to say that we’re excited about it would be an understatement.

sulphur cinquefoil (Potentilla recta)
oxeye daisies (Leucanthemum vulgare)

click on the photos to enlarge them

The backyard is where we spend almost all of our outdoor time. The deck is back there, the gardens are back there, the chickens are back there, the trees are back there, and it’s pretty much completely hidden from the road. It’s our little oasis (when the neighbors aren’t being too noisy, that is).

Aaaaand as for the front yard, it’s pretty much been wasted space.

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