Home – A.M. Pine – Hearth Ridge Reflections

Wednesday Wonders {Day 21}

April 22, 2026 amyofhearthridge12 Comments

•listening• ♥️🌲~

The sound of water trickling (we call the above stream the Withywindle), birds, wind, and I’m getting more audiobook time from walking and driving an hour away for a monthly book club. I have Mistress Pat by L. M. Montgomery and The Raphael Affair by Iain Pears going. The Pears book is an art mystery thriller, it’s a bit info-dumpy, but I love the art fraud case and Rome setting. Two police are helping an art historian unravel the mystery. It’s a series so if I end up liking this one enough, I can go on!

•watching• ♥️🌲 ~ I’m so enjoying checking my daffodils and the tree buds etc for any growth and changes. I did really enjoy this LOVELY journaling YouTube video recently. I was inspired to create my May reading pages. They look 👀 nothing like 😆 some of these gals I watch, but I had fun all the same. I used some kitty washi I had and a Pusheen stamp set we had laying around. I also found some more fun cute reading bingo boards on Pinterest. I find it so satisfying to fill them in here and there.

•reading• ♥️🌲~

I mentioned the two audiobooks I’m enjoying 👆, but currently, I have SO many books on the stack. I think I’m most enjoying spy/thriller/mystery archaeology type adventure stories 😆😂 with a healthy dose of classic, comfort reads. Very strange combo, I know, but I’m definitely eclectic! Below are a few ones I’m throughly enjoying.

Waiting on this next installment of Alex Rider teen spy for MI6! 😅

The first was very violent, BUT I really liked Elias, one of the the main characters and so I’m continuing this series!

•noticing• ♥️🌲~ We have a lot of Bloodroot blooming along the field and road edges. The Robins, Killdeers, and Red-winged Blackbirds have been vocal! I’ve had two Eastern Bluebird sightings which of course fills me with happiness. 😆💙🧡🤍 We saw the male American Goldfinches donning their yellow jackets! 💛🥰 We are testing our observations on the Barn Swallows. They usually are back around my daughter’s birthday and it’s this weekend (17!) so it will be fascinating if we see them! I’ll let you know! I loved seeing my youngest get to ride a horse this past week for the first time. He wasn’t sure but then really enjoyed it. 🐴

What have you been listening to, reading, watching, noticing? I’d really love to hear! ♥️🌲🥰

Dust and Dreams {Day 20}

April 21, 2026 amyofhearthridge3 Comments

Wowsers. 😜😮‍💨 Nothing like packing up parts of your home for a much needed renovation project to see how terrible of a cleaner/organizer I am! 😧🫨😆

We are, Lord-willing, finally getting our walls properly insulated and a new floor! 😍 Among other things, hopefully! BUT that means taking down my shelves that my FIL built 10 (!) years ago. So LOTS of books have to be packed up!

It’s a great opportunity for me to purge and organize. So many memories with all my children and these wonderful books we thrifted, hunted down, and treasured over the years. 🥲😍🥰

Thank God for motherhood and the opportunity to home educate. 😍🥲♥️

Any projects on your horizon? I hope to update about this and my gardening soon! 🤞🏻♥️

Monday Ponderings {Day 19}

April 20, 2026April 20, 2026 amyofhearthridgeLeave a comment

Merrily Gareth ask’d

‘Have I not earn’d my cake in baking of it?

Let be my name until I make my name!

My deeds will speak: it is but for a day.’

So with a kindly hand on Gareth’s arm

Smiled the great King, and half-unwillingly

Loving his lusty youthhood yielded to him.

Gareth and Lynette, Idylls of the King, Tennyson

‘Damsel,’ Sir Gareth answer’d gently, ‘say

Whate’er ye will, but whatsoe’er ye say,

I leave not till I finish this fair quest,

Or die therefore.’

Gareth and Lynette

I’m slowly getting into my buddy read of Idyll’s of the King and I was struck remembering this lovely picture book version of this part of the poem. The Kitchen Knight retold by Margaret Hodges is lovely, largely due to the illustrations by Trina Schart Hyman!

Happy Monday, friends! Our weekly quest has begun! Go forth boldly and without fear! 🙏🏻♥️😍

Poems & Paths 🌿{Day 17}

April 17, 2026April 17, 2026 amyofhearthridgeLeave a comment

Inspiration:

“Six feet down in the sand
There’s creatures that made a hole
Do speak, I’m begging you, please
There’s beauty outside control (Outside)”

~RM💜

My friend, Sam’s devotional about the Mundanity of God ♥️

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Prayers of a Fool”

Cathedral carvings hidden
Full-time home hearth lovin’ forbidden
Fool, don’t do that again
Takes long, second gone, down drain, amen.
Wash, rinse, sunrise driven
Plant, weed, kiss that bruised knee
Blood, sweat, things that don’t make sense.
Paint, scribble, lock it in a drawer, forgotten.
Cathedral songs stir, long-dead-dusty, silent
Heart strings strum violent
Prayer painting skies violet.
Fool, don’t do that again.
It don’t make sense.

A.M.P. 🌲♥️

Reading stack today…📚📚📚{Day 16}

April 16, 2026April 17, 2026 amyofhearthridge1 Comment

If you could chuck your to-do list out the window today, what would you do? 😅😂 I’d find a lovely spot by water, under a tree, or in my cute local coffee shop, grab a latte , and read. I know, surprise, surprise. ☺️😉

Here’s what’s on my stack that I’m currently interested in or really enjoying!

Cheesy, bordering on super silly continuing cozy mystery series that pokes fun of the Regency literature era tropes 😂

I ♥️ my Kindle! Amish in April selection (Booktube Readathon), a couple of fantasy novels, a mystery, writing nonfiction, and continuing 14 yo spy thriller series!

Middle Grade Historical Fiction! Can’t wait to try this! I adore anything with lighthouses!

Oh my word. I’m absolutely adoring this book. Montgomery’s writing and characters make my heart sing. 😍🥹♥️

I love keeping house…it’s really a lovely phrase, isn’t it? Keeping it…holding it fast against the world…against all the forces trying to tear it open.

Mistress Pat ♥️🌿

Wednesday Wonders •Homeschool History/Geography Edition• 🗺️🧭 {Day 15}

April 15, 2026April 15, 2026 amyofhearthridge6 Comments

Fun, adventurous story set near the Amazon River!

Favorite history/geography/architecture picture book series by Elizabeth Mann!

•listening to and reading •♥️🌿~ we are really enjoying our read aloud of Journey to the River Sea. We’ve kind of poked our head into South America, this year while studying Early American history, explorers, etc. We have some Ancient reading going on and early European too. It’s seems to be opening up ideas and interesting discussions and narrations. 😍

A few individual things with different children we are enjoying! Oldies, but goodies. Trying to ‘use my shelves’!

•watching and noticing•♥️🌿

One child mentioned within my hearing how The Divine Comedy 🎭 and the podcast The 100 Days of Dante were coming together with other things. My heart cheered inside. 😅♥️ I’ve noticed that Marvel and the Percy Jackson Series have been being connected to Greek/Norse myths we are always enjoying in our Literature. My older kids enjoy some of the Marvel movies and ALL of my kids have appreciated Percy Jackson’s adventure stories.

Tornado 🌪️/ thunderstorm weather in our area! 😱😬

What have you been listening to, reading, watching, and noticing? I’ve been so interested and pleased with our history adventures this year! Thank You, Lord! ♥️😍📚🥰

Rabbit 🐇 trails ~ {Day 11}

April 11, 2026 amyofhearthridgeLeave a comment

Links 🔗

Interesting short essay about Dante’s use of water in The Divine Comedy ~

Listen to this beautiful piece while reading Dante article!

Hidden track song that I’m thinking about ~

My daughter sent me this beautiful version of a favorite ~

We went to a favorite nature haunt and I finally saw the flower of the skunk cabbage!😍♥️

Little spores puffed off of these red bits when I ran my fingers over them! 😃♥️

How was your week? We are just itching for it to warm up a bit more, but overall a good week! We had homeschool co op, my tulips/daffodils are peeking up their heads and looking 👀 around suspiciously, a local play that two children are involved with, and one of my children is being baptized! ♥️😍

Walking & Words🚶🏽‍♀️📜 {Day 10}

April 10, 2026 amyofhearthridge1 Comment

“Marilla!” Anne sat down on Marilla’s gingham lap, took Marilla’s lined face between her hands, and looked gravely and tenderly into Marilla’s eyes. “I’m not a bit changed-not really. I’m only just pruned down and branched out. The real me-back here-is just the same. It won’t make a bit of difference where I go or how much I change outwardly; at heart I shall always be your little Anne, who will love you and Matthew and dear Green Gables more and better every day of her life.”

~ Anne of Green Gables

😭😭😭 thinking about my Anne getting MARRIED. 😭😭😭 My oldest son is doing a lot and making decisions, too!! Change and them growing up is in my heart. Hard, but beautiful. ♥️🙏🏻

If I can stop one Heart from breaking

I shall not live in vain

If I can ease one Life the Aching

Or cool one Pain

Or help one fainting Robin

Into his Nest again

I shall not live in Vain.

~ Emily Dickinson

We are enjoying Dickinson again in our co op currently! She is one of my most favorite poets and I think this above poem IS my favorite by her. 🥲♥️ The prayer over my life. Here is a beautiful print of it for your home.

When Marilla had eaten her lunch Anne persuaded her to go to bed. Then Anne went herself to the east gable and sat down by her window in the darkness alone with her tears and her heaviness of heart. How sadly things had changed since she sat there the night after coming home! Then she had been full of hope and joy and the future had looked rosy with promise. Anne felt as if she had lived years since then, but before she went to bed there was a smile on her lips and peace in her heart. She looked her duty courageously in the face and found it a friend-as duty ever is when we meet it frankly.”

~Anne of Green Gables, emphasis mine

I’m nobody! Who are you?

Are you nobody, too?

Then there’s a pair of us-don’t tell!

They’d banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!

How public, like a frog

To tell your name the livelong day

To an admiring bog!

~Emily Dickinson

Anne went to the little Avonlea graveyard the next evening to put fresh flowers on Matthew’s grave and water the Scotch rosebush. She lingered there until dusk, liking the peace and calm of the little place, with its poplars whose rustle was like a low, friendly speech, and its whispering grasses growing at will among the graves. When she finally left it and walked down the long hill that sloped to the Lake of Shining Waters it was past sunset and all Avonlea lay before her in a dreamlike afterlight-“a haunt of ancient peace.” There was a freshness in the air as if a wind that had blown over honey-sweet fields of clover. Home lights twinkled out here and there among the homestead trees. Beyond lay the sea, misty and purple, with its haunting, unceasing murmur. The west was a glory of soft, mingled hues, and the pond reflected them all in still softer shadings. The beauty of it thrilled Anne’s heart, and she gratefully opened the gates of her soul to it.

~Anne of Green Gables

Wednesday Wonders ♥️🌲{Day 8}

April 8, 2026 amyofhearthridge2 Comments

Good morning! ☀️ Resurrecting my Wednesday Wonders series…I recently answered these questions here, but they are always changing, so indulge me again?! 😄♥️🌷

•listening to•♥️🌲~ I’m finally getting to the sequel in L.M. Montgomery’s Silver Bush duology, using this audiobook recording of it that is fantastic! I’m LOVING Mistress Pat even more than the first. Patricia is growing up and feeling the growing pains of possibly having to leave Silver Bush and everything changing! I identify with change being hard! 🥲I also want to listen more to this Josh Garrels release!

Music practice always going on around here! So thankful we have the ability for lessons!

•reading•♥️🌲~ My mood shifted yesterday 😅 and I started rooting around for things to read. 😂📚 I think I’m leaning towards cozy classics, charming characters, and delicious nature descriptions. Of course, I first picked up, my gal, Maud Montgomery! Hence, Mistress Pat! A memory I have is rereading the whole Anne Series when I was pregnant with my first. Her name is Ann-E 🥹♥️😅 and she getting married later this year! Maybe I’ll reread the series this year in honor!? 😭😍

•watching•♥️🌲~ I’m slowly rereading all the greats with my younger set. The Wind in the Willows is one of the current ones. It’s such a great book for spring! I was craving the claymation? film version and so enjoyed watching it. The peaceful atmosphere (except Toad 🐸😂) was just as I remembered it.

•noticing•♥️🌲~ Our Black Willow trees sustained a lot of damage in a recent ice storm, but I salvaged a few branches with buds for the table. The robins have been so cheery even though it’s been rainy and cold. I’m waiting not so patiently for warmth and usually by the end of April, the Barn Swallows are back! 😍♥️

Coming to the end of this in our homeschool co op!

Beautiful 🤩 chaos – so thankful for life and color!

What about you? ♥️🌲 What are you listening to, reading, watching, and noticing TODAY?! ☀️🌷💜🌿🍃

Favorite First Quarter Reads: 📚2026📚 {Day 7}

April 7, 2026 amyofhearthridge7 Comments

🍃Just remembering here my favorite reads of January, February, and March. I love looking back and also sharing in hopes you might find one you love!🍃

•The Road Past Altamont by Gabrielle Roy, translated by Joyce Marshall ~ Canadian writer connects four stories loosely on mother and daughter relationships, growing older, time, and deep longing all cloaked in gorgeous, sparse writing.

•The Dawn of Wonder by Jonathan Renshaw ~ a wonderful quest fantasy story surrounding Aedan and his friends. This has amazing friendship, leadership, and character growth.

•This is Happiness by Niall Williams ~ A small Irish village on the cusp of change. You grow to love and care for the characters and see yourself in them. This is such a human story and the author understands small village life! This was so beautiful at times it makes you ache.

•The Will of Many by James Islington ~ I absolutely loved the main character, Vis, and how much he values the memory and lessons of his father. The battle between doing what’s right and surviving in a system built on greed and corruption. So many wonderful characters and ideas to consider in this epic fantasy.

•Through Rushing Water by Catherine Richmond ~ Gorgeous historical fiction about an ex-Russian nobility immigrant who gets sent to the American West as a school teacher to a Native tribe. This will pull at your heart strings. Richmond did a fantastic job of not sugar coating this time period.

•The Star That Always Stays by Anna Rose Johnson ~ This had a slow start, but a wonderful blended family story set in Michigan on the cusp of WWII. I loved the literature threads, the conversation about Indigenous mixed-race tensions, and the gentle faith themes woven throughout. Solid middle grade read!

•Followed by Frost by Charlie N. Holmberg ~ This feels a bit Disney-Frozen-ish , but don’t let that stop you from this quiet, deceptively deeper story. Slow start and very creepy villain, but what a wonderful story of selflessness and how servanthood ultimately defeats loneliness.

•The Secret of Honeycake by Kimberly Newton Fusco ~ This is such a heartfelt story around two sisters dealing with death and chronic illness. This is a slow-as-molasses middle grade story, but I ate up every delicious word. So beautifully written with friendships, growth, domestic details, and LIFE.

•Persuasion by Jane Austen ~ I’ve read this so many times but have to mention it here because I was so delighted all over again. The humanity and magnifying glass that Austen does is so perfect. I especially loved Mrs. Smith of Westgate Buildings 😅 this time through.

•The Robe by LloydC. Douglas ~ A wonderful historical fiction set around the time of Christ. I posted a bit more about it here! Highly recommend!

•The Hotel Balzaar by Kate DiCamillo ~ This was so sweet and lovely! It follows little Marta around the hotel where her mother works as a maid after the disappearance of her father. This is full of the lovely noticing, longing, thoughts on life, memories, parents, and meaning from a child’s perspective. The illustrations made this absolutely shine!

Sophie helping me pick my next read! 😂♥️

📚🌷How about you? Any stand out reads at the beginning of the year? I’d love to hear! 🌷📚

Monday Ponderings {Day 6}

April 6, 2026 amyofhearthridge1 Comment

“The fruit of silence is prayer, the fruit of prayer is faith, the fruit of faith is love, the fruit of love is service, the fruit of service is peace. “

~ Mother Teresa

Thinking and praying on this as a week of homeschooling, wedding planning, cooking, and extras stretches before me. 🪴🌷🌿🍃🌲What’s on your heart? 💜

”There’s green in that wood yet. Look at it.” 🌿 Happy Resurrection! 🌿 {Day 5}

April 5, 2026 amyofhearthridge3 Comments

“That one?” she said. “Is that one quite alive-quite?” Dickson curved his wide smiling mouth.

“It’s as wick as you or me,” he said; and Mary remembered that Martha had told her that “wick” meant “alive” or “lively.”

“I’m so glad it’s wick!” she cried out in her whisper. “I want them all to be wick. Let us go around the garden and count how many wick ones there are.”

~ The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, illustrated by Tasha Tudor