Grew up in South Florida, attended magnet public schools, started working young, started training as a typesetter right out of high school, did a little community activism as a young adult, loved volunteer work, hated college, eventually became a graphics designer. Have held many bizarre jobs from which I gained life skills, learned a few tricks and encountered more learning opportunities than any college education could have given me.

My parents decided to retire in Costa Rica and I stalled as long as I could on visiting. A month and a half after my arrival, I knew this is where I wanted to be, who knew? I have lived on and off the farm for years, mostly off. I’ve gotten the need to roam out of my system and have settled into farm life with my husband. We have a pretty cool farm with the typical things like cows, chickens, horses, tractor and a motley crew of dogs. However, we do almost everything very different from traditional farm methods here in CR. The neighbors think we are nuts, this permaculture thing is a lifestyle, not a hobby. You got to be in to it, devoted to it and be ready to hear you are doing it wrong. My parents appropriately named our farm “Finca Quijote”… we do things a little differently here.

I promise to try and keep the citrus peels out of the compost bin. Yeah, this permaculture thing is not new to me as my parents have been doing it for 10 years now, but this is my first real go at it. I am not an outdoors kind of girl and most plants die in my care. That said, I take care of the office and hospitality here at Finca Quijote. We are creating a pretty cool place to visit and live in. We have dorm style and tent lodging, a classroom and dining area where we plan to host permaculture courses, projects and internships. We would like to be a Wet Tropics Permaculture research and training center.