In Suches, Georgia, my husband and I are developing our 10-acre homestead, established in 2014, as a permaculture demonstration site.

Toby Hemenway's book Gaia's Garden was my introduction to permaculture back in 2006, followed by a batch of other permaculture books. I was living in a subdivision at the edge of a small town in Kentucky then and teaching school. I began to transform my backyard, learning as I went. When I sold my Kentucky house and half acre in 2012, it had a dozen raised beds for growing annual and perennial vegetables and companion plants, a kitchen garden with flowers and herbs, and a backyard-scale food forest in development. In 2014, a long-time dream became a reality: I was able to take the permaculture design course taught online by Geoff Lawton. It was a life-changing experience I am eager to share.

Over the last decade, as I was learning about permaculture, I was also deepening my understanding of the trajectory humanity is on, the impact we are having on the planet, and what must change. We depend on extraordinarily brittle and vulnerable systems (including an economic system that is failing more and more of us and a food system that is jeopardizing our health), when we need to cultivate resilient and regenerative systems instead and to restore the "do-it-ourselves" resilience of local communities. Realizing all this, I began collaborating with professionals and grassroots volunteers in the area of preparedness planning, not only for households, but for neighborhoods, communities, and regions.

My husband Charley and I offer site consultations and permaculture design services. (Charley's background includes passive solar building design, configuration of solar and hydro energy systems, and years of off-grid homesteading.) We are also interested in helping to facilitate neighborhood-scale planning for DIO resilience and abundance. In collaboration with others, we plan to help orchestrate permaculture learning opportunities (workshops, study groups, and hands-on projects) in North Georgia, beginning in 2015.