Roots & Rainboots Nature Co.

Slow childhood. Strong roots.

It Started With a Cigar Box

Before there were nature kits or nature programs or beautifully curated wooden boxes with glass lids, there were cigar boxes.

I would save the cotton from vitamin bottles and my boys would line their boxes with it — carefully, seriously — to keep their treasures safe. A shark tooth found at the beach near our Navy base in Virginia Beach. A rock with the ghost of a fossil pressed into it. A smooth stone worn down by the ocean. Spotted feathers. Seed pods. Things small enough to hold in the palm of a hand, but big enough to fill a curious mind.

We decorated the boxes based on whatever interested them that season. We went to parks and the shoreline and, when I had a little extra, to the Smithsonian store across from our apartment — where they spent their allowance and birthday money on things that mattered to them. At four years old, they had a microscope. They spent hours with it.

When we found something we didn't recognize, we didn't search online. We went to the library — the children's section, the science section — and we looked it up together. The finding was only the beginning. The wondering was the point.

The Morning That Said Everything

On the first day of kindergarten, my oldest woke up early and asked me to press his pants — the way his father's Navy uniform was pressed. He was ready before I was. Before he walked out the door, he turned to me and said:

“Where I am going is very important. I will tell you all about it when I come home.”

He was five years old. He already understood that the world was full of things worth taking seriously.

That boy is now an Assistant Director at Syracuse University. His brother, who once lined his cigar box with the same careful attention, is a science professor. I don't think that is a coincidence.

Why Roots & Rainboots Exists

Roots & Rainboots Nature Co. exists because I believe that childhood is not something to be optimized. It is something to be lived — slowly, curiously, with muddy hands and pockets full of rocks.

The Naturalist Kit is the cigar box, reimagined. A handcrafted wooden display box with a glass lid. Natural specimens sourced from the same parks where we play together — moss, lichen, pine cones, feathers, stones, seed pods. Activity cards that guide children from wondering to noticing to understanding. A journal to document what they find. A magnifying glass to look closer.

Every kit is built by hand. Every specimen is real. Every activity is rooted in the same philosophy I raised my boys with: go outside, find something, and then go learn everything you can about it.

This is not a screen. This is not a shortcut. This is slow childhood. And slow childhood builds strong roots.

And Now There Is Fiadh

My granddaughter is two years old. Her name is Fiadh.

In Irish, Fiadh means free and wild. Of the forest.

She arrived in this world already carrying the mission. She doesn't know it yet — but she is the reason all of this continues.

Someday she will have her own box. She will line it carefully with something soft. She will carry it outside and come back with her pockets full and her eyes wide. And she will want to know the name of everything she found.

That is the whole story. That has always been the whole story.

Roots & Rainboots Nature Co.

Slow childhood. Strong roots.