About Wilder Seasons
When I first became a mother, I felt both wonder and overwhelm. The days stretched long and the hours felt endless, yet I was desperate to fill them with meaning. I wanted to be present, to slow down with my children, but often I found myself scrambling for ideas, feeling behind, or worrying I wasn’t doing “enough.”
So I started small. A walk around the block in winter became a lesson in footprints and frost. A basket of apples turned into an afternoon of stamping, tasting, and stacking. I realized that the seasons themselves were offering me a rhythm — a way to root our days in the beauty already unfolding outside our window.
I’ve always craved raising my children immersed in their place — not just anywhere, but here. I want them to know the names of the prairie grasses under their feet, the songs of local birds, the rhythm of Nebraska’s seasons. With my background in sustainability, geology, and art, I’ve long been drawn to the interconnectedness of people and the natural world — and motherhood only deepened that pull. I wanted my children to grow up not only noticing the world around them, but loving it.
Wilder Seasons began as a lifeline for my own family: one simple, seasonal idea each week that gave us direction without pressure. It was never about perfection, but about creating little anchors of joy — a recipe to stir together, a song to sing, a place to explore, an activity to spark curiosity.
Somewhere along the way, I realized I wasn’t alone in this. Other parents longed for the same gentle rhythm, the same invitation to notice, to slow down, to connect. What started at my kitchen table grew into something bigger — a guide to help families find beauty in the ordinary, and to feel less alone in the long, messy, wonderful days of raising children.
And I’ll be honest — I’m still learning. In a world that moves so fast, slowing down doesn’t come naturally. It’s not something I’ve mastered, but something I keep choosing, again and again.
That choice — to keep returning to the seasons, to the land that shapes us, to presence over perfection — is what gave life to Wilder Seasons. It is my way of holding onto what matters most, and of sharing it with anyone else who might be searching for the same.
-Dakota
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