ABOUT

FiNDING HOME

“She did not work for flourishing in her time only. It was through her actions of reciprocity, the give and take with the land, that the original immigrant became indigenous. For all of us, becoming indigenous to a place means living as if your children’s future mattered, to take care of the land as if our lives, both material and spiritual, depended on it.”

 

Of Skywoman and the creation story told by the first people of the Great Lakes region. From Robin Wall Kimmerer in “Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants.”

 

For me, home is an identification of and connection to “place”, where my hands tend the soil. While I have no ancestral connection to these lands, I pledge to tread gently and use my acknowledged privilege to leave the soil much better than when I found it, wherever I go, and to share my knowledge openly with others.

Learn more about what led me to the soil food web
ABOUT

QUALIFICATIONS

I get my chops from Dr Elaine’s Soil Food Web School.  I invite you to check out the website for links to some great educational videos, case studies and webinars, as well as an extensive list of published research supporting the soil food web approach to regenerating living soil.  The school’s YouTube channel is also an excellent resource.

 

 

Prior to having the incredible privilege of working alongside passionate people in regenerative agriculture, I spent 17 years as a clinical Speech-Language Pathologist. After earning my degree in Australia in 2003, I supported newborns to the elderly with communication and swallowing difficulties across hospital, community and private practice settings in New Zealand, Tasmania, Ireland and then Canada.

 

This work gave me an appreciation for all of the wonderfully complicated facets of humanity, the influence of culture and the challenge of mindsets, and for the power of relationship. Rooted in reductionist science, I found myself craving the gestalt and felt the pull of ecology, a need to more closely align with nature resonating deep within my bones. As a homesteader of 15 years, the shift into soil ecology was a natural one. Now I can combine years of analytical skills with my love for the natural world. And soil is what underpins it all. I am ever grateful for the opportunity to surround myself with folks who give a damn. And the microbes, of course. Don’t forget the microbes. Our relationship with them may just be the most important one of all.