Sheltering Hills Design
Sheltering Hills Design came out of a desire to expand and ground permaculture practice in my own community. By following my own passion for connecting people with other people, new ideas, and innovative practices, I hope to enrich the lives of those around me and to create more resilient natural systems.
Begun in 2007, Sheltering Hills Design has reached out throughout the bioregion and into surrounding areas through design and education.
I am a seventh generation Hoosier, with deep ties to the forested hills and rivers of southern Indiana. Though permaculture practice began formally for me in 2005, I grew up with a conservative family that had multiple gardens-incorporating fruits, shrubs, and animals into the patterns and rhythms of those sites. My family also preserved seed, propagated young fruits, foraged on nearby public lands, and was active in forestry.
Perhaps unlike many of my generation, I poured over seed catalogues, planned animal breeding programs, and mapped out farms from an early age. I still continue to believe that children are the best designers, given that their imaginations are not restricted in the way that adults' imaginations are.
In my rebellious 20s, I became an organizer and carried my interests to community design. Shortly after leaving college, I worked in the areas of social justice (working with ACORN, the AFL-CIO, and a domestic violence program). At about the same time, I began working with forest issues. Thirteen years later I've come full circle by serving as Director of Indiana Forest Alliance through the fall of 2010.
In 2005, as I was finishing up my second stint in graduate school, I stumbled into a Permaculture Design Course with Peter Bane and Keith Johnson. I never looked back. From the end of that course, I began apprenticing as a teacher. After the first year, I began working as a designer and offering independent workshops. The next year, I began coordinating the Bloomington Permaculture Guild. In 2008, I began working with The Permaculture Activist. In 2010, I joined the board of the Association for Regenerative Culture. It's an amazing synergy and unfolding at the same time.