08/07/2026
🌱 Our summer students have been part of something really special.
At Amy’s Backyard Farm, we’re building more than a garden.
As a regenerative homestead, we’re constantly working toward a living, interconnected system — one that gives back more than it takes. As we grow more food, native plants, pollinator attractors, and culinary and medicinal herbs, and choose not to spray our plants with chemicals, we’re also creating a place where more life can thrive.
And that means sometimes the bugs thrive, too. 😂
This summer, our students have been investigating high populations of potato beetles and Japanese beetles, along with voles, mice, and all of the other creatures who have discovered that our homestead is a pretty great place to live.
Gardening can be frustrating when something eats the plant you worked so hard to grow. But instead of seeing those moments as problems to simply get rid of, we use them as opportunities to ask:
What is happening here? What does this creature need? What needs to change? And how can we steward this land without disrupting the whole system?
Because ecosystems are messy. They’re complicated. And they are rarely a smooth path.
That’s where the real learning happens.
This week, our Wild Makers brought their habitat and food-web learning full circle as we began construction on Eastern Screech-Owl nesting boxes — a project designed to encourage these incredible birds of prey to become part of our little ecosystem. They learned how to safely and appropriately use real tools, and used observation skills to identify ideal locations for eastern screech owls to thrive. These life skills will be put into action next class as we work together to assemble the boxes.
And our Nature Builders wrapped up the planning phase of their wildlife pond project.
They didn’t just get handed a pond design.
They assessed the needs of the land.
They read the landscape to determine where a pond could thrive and provide the best habitat.
They measured. Mapped. Tested soil.
They researched plants that can naturally help filter water and the animals that can become part of the pond’s cleanup crew.
They figured out what materials we already have and created a budget-friendly shopping list for what we still need.
And next class we break ground 🐸
These are just a couple examples of what learning looks like at Amy’s Backyard Farm.
Our kids aren’t simply being told about ecosystems, biodiversity, wildlife, or sustainability.
They’re observing, questioning, designing, problem-solving, researching, building, making decisions, working together, and seeing the consequences of those decisions unfold in a real, living system.
And sometimes they get muddy along the way.
This is the kind of learning kids remember.
The kind where a beetle becomes a science investigation.
A pile of dirt becomes a pond.
A bird box becomes a lesson in habitat.
And a garden becomes a living classroom.
🌱 If you’ve been looking for an outdoor learning experience where your child can actually DO the learning, we’d love to have you join us.
We have limited openings for our fall semester at Amy’s Backyard Farm. Send me a message or comment “INFO” and I’ll send you the details!
