I grew up in cities but spent my summers on 'the family farm' in Ohio as a kid. My experience there was with with dairy cattle and growing all their food and some of our own. Living in a much dryer region as an adult I found it odd that everyone had grass lawns that they watered constantly so I started to convert my large yard to drought tolerant and native plants. In 2011 my husband and I started expanding our garden area so we could grow more of our own food. Last year we went to the small farms conference as we are considering moving to a larger property in a few years. At the conference I was introduced to permaculture and am hooked. I attended the Northwest Permaculture Convergence last fall and am currently taking Geoff Lawton's Permaculture Design Course on line.

We have chickens and are converting part of our yard to grazing plants hoping this will also help build our soil. We have some new fruit trees and are doing a lot of observing and researching companion plants. We have cleared an unused area and will be starting a sheet mulch project this year. I am reading and going to workshops to learn as much as I can. I can't believe how absorbing it all is. I feel like this is the beginning of a wonderful journey.