Born in California and raised in suburbs of Washington in a low to middle income family. Early childhood was full of hikes and camping in the local mountains, helping my mother harvest food from our small garden, and raising pigs, sheep, and ducks; some that we showed in our 4H club. I was brought up to recycle and conserve when television wasn't bothering to tell us to do so.

I have been interested in various eco-intelligent practices for some time before I had heard the word permaculture through the treehugger website, but didn't really know what it was about and how great it was till I read Gaia's Garden. I then set off on trying to learn as much as I could about it while feebly making attempts to implement permaculture design in my parents back yard. Nobody at the time was really teaching permaculture design close enough to me that made it financially possible. Thankfully Geoff Lawton offered his online PDC, and I borrowed money to take his course immediately.

Currently, I am helping a couple with their yard; turning it from a lovely, typical vegetable garden, into a lovelier, less input intensive, edible, habitat. So far the only physical changes that have been implemented are going from multiple, straight row paths to a single, circular path that allows the same access. This reduced the work of cleaning gravel each season and also digging up and mixing compost with the soil every season as well. I had suggested no-dig gardening and instead including plants that build soil (which will be planted in the near future). More ideas will be presented and implemented this winter.