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Simple Farmhouse Life
333. Teaching Kids About God Through Nature + Finding Biblical Rest in Everyday Life | Eryn Lynum
00:44:16
Using everyday moments in nature to disciple your kids and rethink your approach to rest
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A
We're going to prioritize what we see as important. And so once we start seeing, okay, it's not just the physical benefits and the mental benefits, and those are huge, but it's also the spiritual benefits that our kids can connect with their creator while out in nature. That right there should drive us to prioritize this. But you're right, it has to be practical. And so I think remembering that even five minutes matters because sometimes we get it in our minds that nature study has to be this big thing.
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B
My name is Lisa, mother of nine and creator of the blog and YouTube channel Farmhouse on Boone. On this podcast, I like to talk about simplifying your life so you can live out your priorities.
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C
I help you learn how to cook
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B
from scratch and decorate on a budget through this podcast and my courses Simple Sourdough and the Simple Sewing series. I will leave links to these resources in the show notes and description box below. Now let's get into the show. Welcome back to the Simple Farmhouse Life podcast.
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C
Today we are having on Aaron from Nat Theo Podcast.
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B
Now, she's a repeat guest on programs including Focus on the family and 1,000 hours outside. She holds a degree in Biblical Studies
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C
and is a certified master Naturalist.
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B
She's the host and producer of Nat
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C
Theo Nature Lessons Rooted in the Bible, a podcast for kids and families.
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B
She's also the author of three books with two new faith and science titles releasing in 2026. She's a trusted voice by families worldwide
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C
for sound biblical teach in nature and science studies. I really found this interview encouraging. I found so many things that I want to follow up on with the kids. So many great resources. I think you're gonna love it as well. Let's dive into the interview.
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A
All right.
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C
Well, Aaron, welcome to the show. Today we're gonna talk about God's design for rest in scripture and creation and how we can nurture the faith of our families through time and nature. So first, let's do a little introduction. Tell us a bit about yourself and your mission online.
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A
Thank you, Lisa. So I work as a master naturalist, which is kind of just a fancy word for nature teacher. And the reason I pursued that education was that I saw that in the Gospels, Jesus uses all kind of nature to teach biblical truth. He uses sparrows and wildflowers and seeds. And I thought, okay, if this is how Jesus taught in the Gospels and this is how we see truth presented throughout Scripture, then surely we can teach the same way. And so I teach the Bible using nature in my podcast and my books and my family we live in northern Colorado. I've been married to my place for it. It is, yeah, for sure. But we didn't start there. We didn't start there. I usually. I have to include that we kind of started this all in the city because I really believe that you can access nature wherever you live. You just have to get a little more creative sometimes. But now we get to live here in Colorado. And my husband and I have been married for almost 17 years, and we have four kids, ages 14 down to 8.
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C
Okay, nice, nice. Well, that's a good. Those are good ages to go. Enjoy. My husband and my oldest, 4, just went to Colorado recently, and those kids are 10 through 17. And so he was able to do, you know, lots of skiing and hiking. And, you know, those. Those ages are a little bit easier. It's a little bit more challenging when they're younger. And I will have to say that
- [03:12]
A
it is so true.
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C
I can struggle sometimes with that to the point of, like, is this even worth it? Like, we'll do little things like go down to the creek, you know, and wait around for a little bit. But as far as doing some of those, like, bigger adventures, it's a little bit more challenging.
- [03:25]
A
Yeah, for sure. And we face that, too when we moved here to Colorado and even before that when our kids were younger. Again, you just have to get a bit creative and make it a priority. But it is fun as they're getting into these older ages, that there's a little more freedom to challenge them and to try some new things.
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C
Yeah, you don't have to worry about nap times. You don't have to worry about, like, everybody can probably swim in your family. So that's really nice.
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A
Yeah. But it's fun getting there, too, like, taking that journey together. And, you know, when we're hiking, like, hey, let's hike a little bit further today. Let's see if we can just get a little bit further and stretch our muscles a little more. And then maybe next time we can go a little bit further than that. And then you can look back after all those years and think, wow, we did this together.
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C
Yeah, that's very true from a young age. So one of the questions I wanted to ask you is how to make that connection between scripture. So how can we point our families to God through nature? That's obviously a broad question, but we can start there.
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A
Well, thankfully, I believe God does designed it that way, that nature and scripture go together. Natural theologians, who were the original scientists, really, they were the ones looking at nature and specifically to see hints of God within it. Like, what can we see from creation that reflects God's designs? And what they said was that God really gives us two books of revelation. And the first, of course, is his scriptures, special revelation. But then he also gives us natural revelation, or sometimes called general revelation. And that is what we see about God through nature. And both of these go hand in hand, like from Romans 1:20, that God's invisible attributes, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived since the beginning through what has been made. And so first, I really believe it's meant to go that way. But we can do it practically even by just changing our language that we use when we're outside with our kids, talking about God as the architect and the engineer and the artist, and asking our kids, why do you think God made that beetle that way? Why do you think it. He made it shiny or to be able to fly? Why did he give this flower hairs on its stem? Or when you're watching birds eat, talking about, did you know that the Bible talks about birds? And how God so carefully cares for the birds and so much more he cares for us. So just bringing in that language and it might even feel a little awkward at first, that's okay. Eventually it becomes natural. But I remember this even from my own childhood. I grew up in the state of Wisconsin, and when I was a young girl, I was riding around our neighborhood one day with my friends on our bikes, and we stopped to talk to some neighbors. And they were an older couple. I didn't know them well at all, but we just stopped to say hi. And the man, he pointed to the sky, and it was about sunset. And he said, look at that. God paints the sunset for us every evening. And that has stuck with me all these years, that little bit of language, God painting the sunset, that will stick with your children. You know, in a society that is so set on detaching creation from creator, we have the power through our language to help our kids see that these are intricately connected, to reconnect those dots.
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C
Yeah, yeah. There's so much opportunity for that. And you also mentioned how time and creation can point our kids to the gospel. Can you talk a little bit about that?
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A
Yeah, definitely. We do this a lot on my podcast, Nat Theo, where we're teaching families biblical truth through things in creation, like all kinds of plants and creatures. But at least once a month, we work in the gospel message to one of our lessons. And recently we did this with woodpeckers and that we were teaching how it is in fact, true that a woodpecker's tongue wraps around its brain. It's this really incredible design that the tongue. They have these crazy long tongues to, you know, get behind the bark and get the insects that they need. But then their tongue wraps around the back of their brain. And it's on this track. It's a special bone called a hyoid bone. So it kind of follows this track to wrap around their brain. And what this does is this whole design of the hyoid bone and their tongue, it acts like a seat belt for their brain so that when they are pecking on trees all throughout the day, all throughout the year, that structure is acting like a seat belt to keep their brain from really suffering from all that impact or jostling around. And we use that to teach kids that, just like God designed that to protect the woodpecker. Jesus takes the impact of our sin so that we are not absorbing the punishment of that sin, so that when kids are out and they're hearing woodpeckers or seeing woodpeckers, they can think about that crazy design of the tongue wrapping around its brain and really absorbing that impact. And remember, oh, Jesus took the impact for my sin that he was struck for me, that he took my wounds, that he took my punishment. And so simple things like that that you just start seeing all throughout creation that. No, we talked about the two revelations of God, spirit, sorry, special revelation, his scriptures and then natural revelation. We don't get the gospel from nature, not inherently like a tree cannot tell us that Christ came to die in our place to save us from our sins. But we can use God's natural revelation to help teach those lessons. See, bringing them together and always bringing it back to Scripture.
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C
Yeah. I think it's so interesting how humans, like, part of our. Like, what we do here is discover more and more. And it's. It's neat at this point in history how much we know, but then how much more there is to be discovered. I don't know if you find that fascinating or how you continue to learn and the resources that you use to. To learn these kind of things.
- [09:06]
A
Oh, yeah, absolutely. My husband and I were just talking about this, and I often think about the ocean and that most of the ocean has never been explored. They're still even just, like, mapping the bottom of it. There's so much of it we've never seen. There's so many creatures that have never been discovered, so many that go extinct without us never knowing that God made them. And that is sad, but also so exciting that there's so much more to find. And when you think about nature study and science, they're actually separate. Nature study, which comes from natural histor history. Think about Carl Linnaeus, the father of taxonomy, looking at creatures and plants and saying, what is it? Where does it belong? What do we categorize it with? That's nature study. It's asking, what is it? And then science builds off that and asks, why is it this way? Why does it do that? That's where, like, experimentation and things like that come in. But we need to get back to nature study and truly learning to observe a thing and teaching our kids to do that. Because then when they go outside, they're looking closely at that bee collecting pollen, and they notice the little yellow bumps on its legs, and they ask, why? Why are its legs bumpy like that? And we can teach them that that's where they carry their pollen. It's their pollen baskets. They carry their sustenance with them, just like we should carry God's word, our sustenance with us. So teaching them to see those details in a dragonfly and a beetle, whether or not we have those answers, like, maybe we don't know why the bee has bumpy legs. That's okay. We can learn together. But first, teaching them. Let's look closely at the details.
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C
Yeah, I think it's interesting, too, because in, you know, 2020. Actually, I would say in 2026. But really, probably always and forever, humans think that they really know, like, everything, but yet everything's so vast, and there's just so much more to explore, and God made it that way for us to just continuously learn more. Yeah. So how do you prioritize time in nature with your children? I know that's something that you mentioned. You were on the 1000 Hours Outside podcast, so they talk about that a lot over there. I'm sure you talk about that a ton on your podcast as well. What are some of the ways that you're able to do that?
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A
Well, first, we have to see it as important if we're going to prioritize it, because that's what we naturally do. Right. We're going to prioritize what we see as important. And so once we start seeing, okay, it's not just the physical benefits and the mental benefits, and those are huge, but it's also the spiritual benefits that our kids can connect with their creator while out in nature. And that right there should drive us to prioritize this. But you're right, it has to be practical. And so I Think remembering that even five minutes matters because sometimes we get it in our minds that nature study has to be this big thing. And it can be. Like our family the other day spent half a day at the river and it was marvelous. We had to plan for it. We had to pack snacks and a picnic and everything that we needed. But also if you have five minutes, then that matters and that's impactful for your child. Just yesterday I was busy working and my son came in, he's 10 years old, and he said, hey mom, do you have one minute to come outside? I was like, I thought to myself, like, yeah, I have one minute that I can go outside. Yeah, one minute. And he takes me out to the back porch and he showed me that our crabapple tree was in full bloom, just covered in these white blossoms. And he asked me to sit with him for one minute. That's all he wanted. He didn't want this big elaborate experience. He wanted one minute and he'll remember that. I know that for me, my core memories from childhood, the majority of them are outside, not inside. And so let's cultivate that time and that space to create those memories. A really great way to do this is to invite friends. Maybe you're a little intimidated to go spend a day in nature. You're not really sure what you guys will do. Invite a friend, say, hey, can we go to the beach? Can we go to the river? Do you want to go to this natural area I saw when we were driving to the post office the other day? Bring lots and lots of food, bring lots of water, bring everything. You're going to need lots of water. Yeah, but the thing. Oh totally, totally. But the thing is like when kids are around other kids, they're going to feed off that curiosity and that energy and it's this built in motivation to enjoy spending time outdoors.
- [13:20]
C
Yeah. And I always find too with kids, sometimes it takes them a little while to get into something. So we go to my parents place and we keep the kids outside unless it's like really, really, really cold. Like we keep the kids pretty much outside because my sister and I both have so many children. And sometimes they'll be at your feet just whining. And then after like a certain amount of time, they're all playing something that you could never even pull them away from if you wanted to. And you just have to get past that uncomfortable part. Like another example of this is right now we're building a house. So we're out there, but the house isn't done. So the Kids are always outside, and same thing. They'll be like, can we go back? You know, we don't know what to do. And then after a certain amount of time, they don't want to leave.
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A
Yeah, it's so true. They. They just find things. And there's so much benefit in that because they're learning whether they. They'll call it this or not. The value of boredom. That when you go outdoors, especially for a child that isn't accustomed to spending time outdoors, and they're like, what do I even do? What can I play with? And then they decover some sticks and they start building a teepee, or they see a line of ants carrying crumbs or carrying their eggs to a. And they just sit there and observe them like, this is how God designed our children, with this innate curiosity. And sometimes we have to rekindle that within them. But you're exactly right that this is what they're made for. And so they're going to find things to do when they're outdoors.
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C
Yeah, they do. Sometimes it takes them, like, 10, 15 minutes. Because a lot of my kids, too. Like, a lot of kids are used to having, like, a bike or sidewalk chalk or kites. You know, we have, like, water guns. But sometimes we'll be in a situation where we're somewhere where there's nothing and. Or we don't want to get toys out. Like, we just don't want to. We're going to be here for two hours. We just don't want to, like, drag everything out. And that's usually when you'll get that. But then even still, after, like, 15, 20 minutes, they find something to do with the dirt, with the sticks, with, like, you said, like, observing little things, and they end up, like, they literally don't even want to leave. They get so engaged in that.
- [15:23]
A
Yeah, One thing we love to do is stay out there long enough until we lose sense of time. And so we did this other day at the river. We ended up being there for four hours, but I didn't even know that until we got back in the car, because I had no idea how long we had been there. But we were at the same spot along the river, and during those four hours, our kids read books. At one point, I looked over it, and our daughter, who's eight, was just sitting in the dirt, drawing with a stick. There were a couple epic pine cone battles where they're just, like, chucking pine cones at each other. They're throwing stuff in the river. They're finding different creatures at one Point our son. And because we're in the mountains and this was a mountain canyon, like, it's all snow melt, so it's still frigid. And at one point our son just jumped in the river and started swimming.
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C
We do that when it's like 50 degrees. I'm like, guys, exactly.
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A
So they will. That. That's gonna. That's gonna awaken within them, you know, God put that in them.
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C
Yeah. Well, just the other day we were at the creek for quite a while and the amount of crawdads they caught and then they. They caught for our area, they caught one that was like massive. Like, so good.
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A
So good.
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C
And then one of my kids, he loves to just sit there and tie dandelions together like a big old.
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A
Oh, yeah, I remember doing that as a girl. Yeah. Like, that's like the best way to spend an hour.
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C
Yep. I looked at him like, you have been tying dandelions together for a really long time now. But yeah, they find stuff. They really do. Even my oldest son. So my younger sons, this kind of makes sense because just the way their brains work, they're able to just kind of like dig in the dirt and that kind of stuff. But then I have one son who. His mind moves just a lot faster and so he needs, like more of a project.
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B
But even he.
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C
He's 13, comes up with a project, like, even though it's not something that's going to last, like it's something in the creek or, you know, it's not going to stay there tomorrow, but he can even find a project to get on after a little amount of time of boredom.
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A
Yeah, totally. And that just speaks to, like, we are created to create and to build things and to give our kids those opportunities to practice that in nature. I think that's a beautiful thing. Yeah.
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C
And it's. It's cool too, because. Because it a lot of times doesn't last what you're doing out there. It's just like creating for creation's sake. Like, there's no.
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A
Totally.
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C
And like, there's. It's not going to be something that's going to make you, you know, like any money or, you know, in adult terms, like, the kind of things that we would consider, like, productive. It's. It doesn't have any of that.
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A
Yeah, so true.
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B
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C
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B
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- [19:56]
C
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- [19:57]
B
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C
Okay, so how is God's design for rest different from how society views rest? I think this ties into spending time in nature. I think, you know, the way that we think of rest and the way that God thinks of it might be a little different.
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A
Oh, completely, yeah. Especially different from how society usually portrays rest. I think they're vastly different. And about four years ago, our family, we made a very big change and Sabbathing one day a week. And at the time when we decided to do this, I had all these big doubts asking, is this going to really work? Is this realistic? Can we do this? At the time, we were running three businesses, homeschooling our four kids, like you, like everyone listening. We have busy lives. And I'm thinking, how are we going to get everything done in one less day a week? But the thing about God's gift of rest is it's powerful. And that's what we discovered, because when we began doing this, we quickly became more productive, more creative, more effective, more fruitful, because God designed work and rest to work together in perfect harmony. And when you think about the creation narrative, this is really interesting. Think about God created for six days and then rested. But Adam was created on the sixth day. So his first full day was a day devoted to rest. And so we can see that God works and then rest. But humankind began from rest. And that, I believe, is what God has for us, that we have in our minds. Oh, I'll work, work, work, and maybe I'll rest on the weekend or maybe in retirement or maybe when the kids are grown, maybe on vacation. But God always meant for us to start from rest because that's a place of power when we are in the restful presence of God. And so first, just we need to shift our minds away from thinking about rest as idle or lazy or ineffective and see how powerful it is. And so when we started, I was also writing a book about rest at the time and Sabbath. And I wanted to see what does God say about rest in Scripture? And it ends up it is all throughout Scripture in Different themes like abiding and dwelling and Selah in the psalms. And then what does God show? Like, where do we see God's rest in nature? And just the same, it's everywhere, in all of his plants and all of his creatures. Like, think about perennial plants that come back year after year after year. In the winter, it looks like they have died. It looks like nothing's going on. But beneath the soil, as they rest, their roots are strengthening. And every year they come back bigger and more beautiful and more fruitful because of those seasons of rest. And what a beautiful picture for us as we step into rhythms of rest that we can become more fruitful within those natural rhythms.
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C
I notice this as well. We don't, we do go places on Sunday, so we have some pretty regular plans that we do every Sunday, but they're, they're restful because there's no work involved. And I noticed that I work extra hard on certain days of the week to be able to have several days off, like to where, you know, I'm not thinking about anything to do with work. We're really not in the house to do it. You know, we will switch out some laundry and make some meals. But, like, the majority of our work and our homeschool happens on a certain number of days. And I feel like we're more effective because, because of that. Like knowing that we're not going to have seven days in order to get it all done.
- [24:28]
A
Yeah, completely. Well, Parkinson's law says that work expands to fill the time given for it.
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C
It does exactly believe that.
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A
Yeah. So if we in our mind say I have seven days to work, then we're going to fill those seven days with work. But if we say we're going to fit our work into six days or five days, then as long as we're faithful to that, it's going to fit within those days. And it naturally sifts out things that are kind of just fluff or extra or don't need to be there. And so the same exact thing we Sabbath from usually Friday sunset to Saturday sunset. And it's a day given to great food, reading, playing outside together, playing games, visiting with neighbors, putting away all regular work, putting away technology. And I know that during the week, I, I, my work is so much more focused and effective, just like you're saying, because I know that Sabbath is coming.
- [25:17]
C
Yeah, yeah. So we, yeah, we do, we do Sabbath, but then also, like, we kind
- [25:23]
B
of start it really early.
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C
Like we do the whole entire weekend where there's just, it's Just enjoying family, kids, food, like you said. Like, there's just sometimes I'll put something on for, like, Saturday. Like, I'm gonna do this one thing, and I can never get it done because I just, like, have it in my head that we just don't work on the. On the weekends. And then it's kind of like very hard grind the days that we're doing that, and then the rest of the time it feels very relaxed. And I do think there's a really good rhythm to that.
- [25:51]
A
Yeah, yeah. And your kids will remember that. I mean, they will look back and I. I bet you that will be their favorite times. Their favorite memories will fall within those. Those days of rest. Yeah.
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B
Can you share a few examples of
- [26:03]
C
rest in God's creation?
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A
Yeah. So we talked about the perennial plants. Let's see what's a. There's so many good ones.
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C
Yeah, that was a good one.
- [26:10]
A
We're talking about how God created work and rest to really complement each other. And we can see this in hummingbirds. So when you think about hummingbirds, and they're just starting to come back here to Colorado, we heard one the other day at the river. When you see them, they seem like they're just always on the go. Hummingbirds have to visit between 1,000 and 2,000 flowers every day. And so they're just back and forth and here and there. And their. Their wings will flap up to 70 times a second or 4200 times a minute. And so to fuel all of that, their tiny little hearts, which are about the size of a pencil eraser, be around 1200 times a minute. So a little hummingbird, their heart rate is about 1400% higher than a human heart rate. And so, like, we see this and we think about all these numbers, and we're like, these things are always on the go. But the thing is, like, God created them for this fruitful work where they are going and they're visiting flowers and they're pollinating. But it's all supported through a deep strategy of rest called torpor. And torpor. It's kind of like a mini hibernation. And the birds will do it. The hummingbirds will do it about daily. And they go into this deep, restful state where their body temperature will lower up to 50 degrees. They become completely unresponsive. People have found them before and thought that they were dead. Like, even if they're clinging to a branch or a feeder and they go into torpor, sometimes they'll fall upside down and they just cling. They're just hanging there upside down. They have no idea because they're so unresponsive. But it's this deep, rhythmic, regular rest that allows them to keep doing all this fruitful work. And so in this is this beautiful picture of work and rest complementing each other. Like the late theologian Oswald Chambers when he was talking about rest, specifically the rest Jesus talks about in Matthew 11, that he'll give us rest for our souls. He said rest is the perfection of motion. That's so different from the regular idea of rest that we have. Like, we think of rest as the stopping of motion, but he would say, no, it's a perfection of motion. It's stepping back into God's pace and God's agenda.
- [28:21]
C
Yeah, that makes sense. We had a few questions from the audience on cultivating faith through nature. One was, how can we naturally weave time in God's creation into everyday homeschool and family life? So we've talked a bit about this, but I feel like you and I have both shared, like, when we have a full day to hang out by the creek or you were down by the river. What about in the everyday life?
- [28:46]
A
That is such a good question. I mentioned earlier that we often think about nature study as this big thing that we have to plan, and that's a barrier that can keep us from wanting to do it at all. It doesn't have to be this big thing. As an example, yesterday my kids and I were doing homeschool. We're right in the middle of our studies, and the neighbor knocks on the door and says that there's a snapping turtle in the creek down the street. So we, like, run out the door. I think. I think my neighbor was really surprised because she was like, oh, I thought the kids would like to see it. And I was like the first one out the door. So we run down the street to go see this incredible huge snapping turtle. And we just sit and watch this thing for quite a while. And, you know, I could have seen that as an interruption. We're right in the middle of our studies, but instead we need to choose to see these as opportunities. Like when our kid comes in from outside, like, mom, come see this. Come see. They are inviting you into their world of wonderful. They want to give you this gift of this thing that they want to show you. And so I think weaving this into our everyday lives, we need to plan for big experiences and make room for small experiences. Like I mentioned the other day, we spent a half day at the river, and we do this pretty regularly, but we plan for it, we put it on the calendar. We pack everything that we need. Charlotte Mason, lay educator, she said that a child of any school age should have at least one half day a week in nature. Every week, one half day. And so that being a starting point, okay, let's aim for that. But also making space for those smaller opportunities, like with the snapping turtle, whether it's playing in the yard, whether it is working in the garden for 10 minutes, walking around the block to find flowers, or learning to identify a bird in your yard. A great free app for that is the Merlin Bird ID app. You could just turn it on and hit record and it will record the sounds and show you what birds are in your yard. And then you can find them in your binoculars or with your eyes. These little experiences that we can just weave into our everyday lives.
- [30:51]
C
Yeah, yeah, I think too just having like a set recess time sort of during school, you know, where kids can go outside and play around, is good for the rest of the education time too as well, so that they can completely. Okay. Do you have any favorite biblically grounded nature books or resources for children?
- [31:16]
A
Oh, yes, I'm sure. Thankfully there's a lot of good ones.
- [31:18]
C
Yeah.
- [31:19]
A
So if your child is into insects, there's a great collection of books. There's three of them by an author here in Colorado, Kayla White. She has Lucy the Ladybug Melody, a monarch miracle. And her new one is Hazel, a hard working bee. They're full of pictures, actually, she takes all the photography. They're gorgeous. And she goes deep into the designs of these creatures and how God created them to work together and all their important roles in creation. Really well done for animals. I love books by Master Books, the publisher, Master Books, they have a three book collection called Marvels of Creation and it's sensational sea creatures. There's ones on birds and then marvelous mammals. And those are fantastic for a full curriculum, like science curriculum. We love apologia science. Their zoology courses for elementary are fantastic. And both of my middle schoolers, others have done their middle school courses super rooted in biblical truth. And then our podcast, Nat Theo Nature Lessons Rooted in the Bible. It is for kids and families. And again we just bring together nature and science with theology so that kids are learning real science and tying it all back to our Creator, God and biblical truth. And that's free to listen anywhere. But we do have a full curriculum, including nature unit studies available on our website as well.
- [32:38]
C
Awesome. So many great resources. I can't wait to look up some of those, especially those children's books because we have a lot of little children. I like to read books like that to them.
- [32:48]
A
Yes. They're so good.
- [32:50]
C
Yeah.
- [32:51]
B
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- [34:08]
C
how can busy moms realistically prioritize outdoor time with their kids in the midst of full schedules and home responsibilities? I feel like this is definitely something that's a challenge for me because all of my work, whether it's cleaning, laundry, cooking, making bread is indoors and, and I have older kids as well, so we can sort of send children out, you know, in a group. And I find it easy to get them their outside time, but more difficult for me to get my outside time.
- [34:40]
A
Yeah, completely valid. And I think both are beneficial and both are so good for our kids. Like mine will go outside on their own. And then the harder part, like you're saying, is to make sure that we are also going outdoors with them. And so like you're saying, we have these, all these activities we do indoors. And the same with me, whether I'm working or preparing lessons for the kids or I bake bread as well, like we're indoors during those times. So just as much we should be carving out time for outdoors and so like, like I quoted from Charlotte Mason earlier that every school age child should have a half day of nature a week. Let's put that into our schedule if this is truly important. And maybe we can't start with every week, that's okay. Maybe it's every other Friday. And again, inviting friends to come along, building in your friend time during that. Yeah, you can meet at the river with your kids friends and then hopefully their mom is there too. And that's built in friend time for you. And then some fun ways to do this is, you know, we can gamify being outdoors with a scavenger hunt with let's go find how many flowers we can identify. Or again, bird watching. Another great app for this is Inaturalist where you can take a picture of a plant and it'll show you what it likely is. You can even do like caterpillars and it'll show you what butterfly or moth that, that it will probably turn into. And so how many can you go out and identify? I used to guide children's hikes and a favorite hike we did every year was a wildflower scavenger hunt where we would go out and identify as many wildflowers as we could. And I would go scope it out a day or two earlier and I would have pictures of all the flowers and then the kids would go and see how many they could find. It was a blast. And it was so fun because there were several kids that did it two or three years in a row and, and they could remember so many of the flowers from the year prior. And they would tell me, oh yeah, we found these in my neighborhood. Like, this is so biblical as well, because you think about the first job given in creation that Adam named the animals. And we can help our kids come back to this Edenic familiarity with creation when we learn how to identify a bird or a flower. And there's such pride and excitement in that. And so I think these little strategies that. But I'm very productivity driven. Like I want to check things off a list.
- [36:56]
C
Same.
- [36:56]
A
And this is a way to kind of. Right. And we can kind of trick our minds by saying, okay, if we build this into our schedule, right, if this is something we're going to do, then, oh, then we actually feel productive doing it.
- [37:08]
C
You got to put it on your list so you can check it off.
- [37:11]
A
Totally, totally.
- [37:12]
C
Yeah, that's, that's.
- [37:13]
A
But also if the neighbor shows up and says there's a turtle down the road, go see the turtle, even if it's not on your List?
- [37:20]
C
Absolutely. Yeah. What do you find is the best time of year to do your wildflower? Like, I would think anytime in the summer, probably, because there's always something new out.
- [37:32]
A
Yeah, that's true. And it really depends on where you live here in Colorado. It also depends on elevation. And so toward. The first flower I look for every year is a pasque flower, and it's like this soft, purple, beautiful flower close to the ground. And pask means Passover, and it shows up during Passover season. So we went looking for them and found one last week.
- [37:54]
C
I was gonna say, were they early? Because they were early. No snower. My kids went in Colorado snow.
- [37:59]
A
Yeah. It's been so warm. And so when we went out to go find these, I thought it might still be too early, but it might not. And sure enough, they were there. And so you kind of learn. The beauty of is it is to try to learn what flowers are at what time of year and in different places. But, yeah, here, June is prime for wildflowers. And then later in the summer, we'll head up to the tundra above tree line. There are so many wildflowers that grow up on the tundra where it seems like nothing should be able to live. And so even just learning the different areas where you live. Oh, we can find these flowers over here and these flowers over here. Like, we have found four different varieties of wild orchids here in Colorado. I never thought that there were orchids in the desert, you know, and so it just surprises you. And you also, like you were saying, new ones come and go, and it speaks to just the rhythms of nature and that God is orderly and he is timely when you learn and really just become familiar with those rhythms.
- [38:57]
C
Yeah. And you have certain ones that are markers. Like, you first hear. See the daffodils. Not that those are wild, but you see people's daffodils blooming. And then when we see the blue bells wild where, like, it's really spring now.
- [39:09]
A
Yes. Yes.
- [39:10]
C
Yeah. I think it's fun, too, to teach kids the medicinal properties of some of them. So a lot of them are. They can be used for teas and tinctures or like a P. P. However you say that, Uh, I think. I don't know if you've explored into some of that as well.
- [39:27]
A
Only a little bit. So, like, we have yarrow here, which is a really. Just a wildflower we see kind of all over. We have it in our yard, too. And I've heard that Native Americans would use it as band. They would actually Tie it in their hair and then when they need to use it. Yeah, yeah. So they would do that. And then for respiratory mullein is really good for tea and we have that everywhere. It's invasive here, but we also call it toilet paper plant because it has a rosette of leaves. So leaves close to the ground and they're super soft. So if you're out in the wilderness and you find yourself without toilet paper, that's what people will use. And so it's good for respiratory illness or toilet paper when you need it. The kids always, always love that fact.
- [40:07]
C
Yeah, I've been learning about burdock leaves when it comes to burns and wounds. As you put this certain cream on it and then wrap it around the wound and it helps to prevent infection.
- [40:19]
A
Oh, wow.
- [40:19]
C
So that's been interesting. And then what's the herb I always like to get every June? Oh, red clover. Red clover. It's very good for hormones. It's always abundant and it comes out here pretty much every June. But there's just so many things like that. And I find it really interesting because, you know, we have modern medicine and I'm thankful for it, but there's so much that God intended to help us that's already out there.
- [40:42]
A
Oh, completely. And to show that to our kids, like going back to Genesis 1:29:30, that God gave us all the plants for us to eat and for all the animals. And nowadays I think in modern times we, we utilize so little of that and to show our kids all of the benefits of all of these many things for us and for the animals, just really points them to the, the purpose of God's creation and also his care for all of the creatures and us.
- [41:08]
C
Yeah, yeah, we. I use the Google image search and I know I, I don't know, I have mixed feelings about all that, but the other day when they were grabbing things out of the creek, there was a tiny little minnow and it was really cool looking. I felt like I'd never seen it before. But sure enough, it's just a common thing that's in the creek. You know, I just used the little Google image search and we could read all about it. So that's really handy because you can find everything there's to know. Now as far as like herbal things, sometimes Google doesn't do the best at showing that as the first results. You might have to dig a little bit deeper when it comes to that. Yeah, they don't put a lot of stock in that.
- [41:43]
A
Yeah, for sure.
- [41:44]
C
Awesome. Well, there's Just so much to dig in here. So much rest can be found in nature. Tell the listeners all about your podcast, where they can listen to you, where they can find all of your books and your resources.
- [41:58]
A
Thank you. So our podcast, Nat Theo Nature Lessons Root in the Bible, is available on any podcast platform. Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, on YouTube. We have it in video so kids can actually see what we're talking about. And a lot of families use that as their Bible and science curriculum where they'll watch it. Yeah, it's super fun. I never intended that. I never actually intended to podcast. And here we are three years later, and it's so fun to see because, like, it was supposed to be a hobby. And last week it ranked as the number one education for kids podcast in America.
- [42:27]
C
Wow.
- [42:28]
A
Not even, like, faith based. I'm like, education.
- [42:31]
B
That's awesome.
- [42:32]
A
Wow. But it just speaks to. I believe families are hungry for this and kids are excited about God's creation. And it's so fun to learn about these animals and these plants and then say, oh, wow, this ties to this scripture over here. Like, I'm working on a jumping spider episode right now. Have you ever seen these things, the jumping spiders?
- [42:54]
C
I feel like I have.
- [42:55]
A
They're, like, tiny. They're actually cute for a spider. And they jump and they move in these little, little, like, rigid motions, and they learn from their mistakes. Scientists have discovered that if they jump to catch something and they miss, they'll actually adjust their strategy. And this is very rare in the arachnid world. They're. They're. I believe it's the most intelligent arachnids that have been discovered yet. And so we use that to teach, you know, just like God design, design these little jumping spiders to learn from their mistakes. He wants us to learn from our mistakes also and to lean into his grace and to ask for his wisdom. And so that's what we do on the podcast. Everything points back to biblical truth. And again, you can dive in deeper with our full curriculum in the Nat Theo Club, along with unit studies. And then my books, including the Nature of Rest, what the Bible and Creation Teaches About Sabbath Living, are available wherever you buy books. And this fall, I'll also have a. A illustrated children's chapter book out and a family devotion on faith and science.
- [43:53]
C
Awesome. Wow. So many great resources. I'm definitely going to get my kids onto your podcast because they love. They like science, they love nature, but I find it difficult to find one that will go back to the Bible, like, usually.
- [44:07]
A
Oh, yeah, yeah.
- [44:08]
C
They'll say things that I'm like, ah, kids, I don't really agree with that.
- [44:11]
A
Yeah, like pause and okay, conversation moment. Here's an opportunity. Yeah, we totally do that too.
- [44:16]
C
We'll do that.
- [44:17]
A
But you don't have to do that all the time. You want something you feel safe pressing play on.
- [44:21]
C
Exactly. Exactly. Awesome. Well, we'll leave that link down below. We'll also try to put the different things that you mentioned you mentioned a few children's books from a local author where you are, and several other things that we'll try to compile and leave down in the description box or the show notes below, depending on where you are getting this episode. Thank you so much, Sharon.
- [44:42]
A
Thank you. Thanks so much for having me and for the conversation.
- [44:45]
B
Thanks as always for listening to the Simple Farmhouse Life podcast.
- [44:49]
C
My husband, Luke and I and our
- [44:50]
B
kids work together side by side on our farm in Missouri and use our blog, podcast and YouTube channel to reach other homemakers, home cooks and homesteaders with practical recipes in daily family life. For everyday sourdough recipes, make sure to check out our blog, farmazonboon.com and today dig deeper. We do also offer a course called Simple Sourdough over at Bit Ly Farmhouses. All one word. We also teach people how to ferment vegetables and mill their own grains through our courses, Fresh Ferments and Freshly Milled Grains. We will leave links for all of that down in the show notes below.
- [45:33]
A
It.