How do you write a biography about yourself? It’s somewhat like writing a resume – how can you be impartial with yourself as the subject?
Well, I’m many things, but how I earn a living is through web and print design. I have worked in the design world for more than 10 years – both in corporate world and on my own freelance. I have managed teams of people as well as trained new hires in the skills they’d need in design as well as corporate communications.
I have been learning a great deal over the last 5 years about passive solar building design. I haven’t had the opportunity to put that into practice. My dream is to make a life for myself where I have closed the food circle giving back to the animals and plants as much as they give to me.
I have a great deal of knowledge of systems design for passive home and greenhouse designs. I have a good deal of typical frame-construction, renovation, and demolition. I also know how to use and own the standard powertools.
I have worked alongside my partner, “Farmer John” for 2 years maintaining a flock of (at times) over 300 chicken caring for them from incubation through to their slaughter. I also maintain a herd of 12 meat rabbits.
Just wrote this for a website bio:
Taking a look back at the last ten years of my life and how I’ve changed my viewpoint on things, I’m really amazed at how caught up I was in commercialism and the “modern” way of life. Don’t misunderstand me, I still live in the USA and go to the grocery store when I need to buy food.
However, ten years ago I lived in Manhattan – a pinnacle of modern day society where food is trucked in, and garbage is trucked out — just to support 7 million people living on a tiny bit of land. Today, I’m appalled by the unsustainable way of life that western-society has become. There is no way we can live in a harmonious nature by continuing as we are.
Ten years ago I started taking classes, reading books, and tinkering on my own, to understand how I can be “off grid” or as systems and energy self-sufficient as I can. Three years ago, I moved out to California and began keeping a garden with my partner. Even while in New York, I tried to help out and volunteer in a neighborhood garden, but because the waiting list was over 3 years, I could only help. Here in California my partner and I have been growing a big garden of about 500 square feet to supplement our food supply. I’ve been learning and educating myself on the dangers and poisons of commercial farming and have kept a wholly organic garden.
I feel as if I apprentice with my partner in the garden and with the animals. He grew up in Texas with family who raised cattle. He helped in the summers baling hay, worming cows, plowing fields and always kept a large vegetable garden since he was a little boy. To earn money as a boy, he bred, marketed, and cared for exotic birds such as the cockatiel and parrots. He owned and ran a commercial nursery and has an amazing communication with plants that I’m only beginning to understand. He also had an 80 acre ranch where he grew some of his plants as well as sustainably harvested some timber. He moved to California and continued his life-long education about plants to become an herbalist where he studied at the California School of Herbal Studies. He is no stranger to agriculture or animal husbandry.
We keep rabbits and chickens for their protein, but also for the wonderful manure they provide for the garden. We’ve been growing fruits and vegetables as well as starch crops such as barley, wheat, and potatoes for seed-saving and educational reasons. The potatoes were a test to see what varieties would keep best, and product the best. The barley and wheat was to save enough seed to sow a whole field and ideally feed ourselves and our flock of chickens.
Every plant we grew this year we saved seed from with the exception being the pumpkin and squash, since we didn’t catch the flowers in time to prevent cross-pollination. We can almost be sure they’re crossed since we keep about 15 hives of honey bees as well. We are beekeepers as well. The bees are there for our sweet-tooth as well as pollination needs, since in a rural setting there are fewer bees available.
We have been preserving our own food through water-bath canning, drying/dehydrating, and freezing. This year we froze about 15 gallon bags of broccoli, canned over two dozen quarts of tomato sauce, rescued and harvested about 70 pounds of wild raw honey, and made about 150 gallons of cider and plum wine.
Our goal is to not have to go to the grocery except a few times a year, and not for food-related reasons.
The food we eat, and the society that eats it has become so far removed from the source that they aren’t appalled at how toxic and UN-nourishing it really is. We want a better way of life that is closer to the earth and more wholesome for ourselves as well as the land we live upon.
We are living in Cazadero now and really like the ideal weather patterns that West Sonoma county and Mendocino provide. We’d love to find a place where we can live in harmony with the land and keep the traditional way of life going.