Welcome to the Wild and Free podcast, Episode 61.

I'm Ainsley Arment, and this week, Katrina Van Duren of Growing Wild Things shares a day in the life of mountain schooling on her farm in Italy.

I think it's good for children also to grow up, knowing that life isn't always easy.

But I would like my children to know that we made it through and that you can do it.

Because that is the kind of message that I want them to grow up with and not with, oh yeah, mom and dad had this dream and we lived on a farm.

And then one day they threw in the towel because it's not tough.

Plus, our new content bundle called Plant is available for the month of April.

We'll talk about what's inside in just a minute.

So grab a cup of coffee and join us on the front porch.

Let's get started.

She is a gardener. She plants and waters, feeds, and weeds. She is curious. She reads and learns and studies the science of growing things. She observes, explores, and experiments like a botanist,

playing in her laboratory of living things. She notices the slightest change in color and condition of the soil. She loves the process, not just the result, and it's made her an explorer of the world.

She speaks to her plants, gently of course.

One would never shout at a plant, what good would that do?

They turn their faces toward the sun and dance in the breeze.

The gardener has learned patience with time, her gentle teacher.

Garden in UC is a practice in waiting.

For nightfall, for the sunrise, for the harvest to come,

through long winters and dry summers and fruitless crops altogether.

The rains fall, the hail destroys, and the sun restores. Friends, we are more than the

ones who gave birth to our babies. We are the gardeners of souls and the sowers of morrows. We are the

holders of tears and the keepers of dreams. We are the whisperers of moon-dipped prayers and the protectors of ripening

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