About Me
My name is Deb! I’m so glad you’re here!
I am a journalist, nutritionist, vertical farmer, entrepreneur, wife, mom and grammy. My husband Jerry and I live on a 12 acre “spread” just outside of Bend, Oregon. We’ve been here for 25 years now and we raised two sons, Ryan and Dylan, out here. They are both married now and we have three grandsons and we are happy that everyone still lives in Bend!
I grew up on a 350 acre organic cattle ranch near the Oregon Coast. I say “organic” because back then nobody talked about organic gardening, but that’s what we did because nobody had invented Roundup yet to spray on crops and nobody thought about giving antibiotics to cattle. Our cows grazed on canary grass. We had a one acre veggie garden, fruit trees, and lots of wild blackberries and salmonberries for us kids to graze on as well. There were chickens and fresh eggs, too. It was a healthy and great way to grow up.
It wasn’t until I left for college that I started to appreciate how great it was! Dorm food and the discovery of fast food joints wasn’t exactly my downfall, but I quickly realized that growing your own food was at that time not really normal. None of my new college friends had grown up that way, eating veggies just picked from the garden.
After college I went to Alaska and met my future husband who was a commercial fisherman. I worked for a couple of weekly newspapers and eventually got a job as a reporter for the daily Anchorage Times. When Ryan was born I tried putting him in daycare, but couldn’t stand it so I quit my dream job to be a stay at home mom. This was basically unheard of in the mid 1980s when women were supposed to be "having it all."
To be somewhat closer to my mom and dad who lived in Medford, Oregon, we moved to Bend in 1987, about three hours away.
While Jerry was away fishing, I thought I could recreate my childhood gardening experience so my boys could have farm fresh produce like I had. I quickly discovered the climate in Bend is a “challenge” and not at all like gardening on the West side of the Cascade Mountain range. The growing season in Central Oregon is basically June through mid September
Because I have the curiosity of a journalist and have always had an interest in nutrition (I finished my Masters in Holistic Nutrition in 2004) I pay attention to what creates good health and what can lead to bad health. With this website/blog I hope to share useful information and tips for maintaining great health, as well as keep you up to date on projects we are doing with our property. By the way, I was able to “retire” my husband from his long stints of fishing and get him back home to raise the boys with me because I found a home based business that's all about healthy living that still let me be a stay at home mom! Instead of being a kind of stranger who visited us a few times a year, Jerry was able to coach the boys in baseball and basketball and was a totally present Dad in their lives.
I am a journalist, nutritionist, vertical farmer, entrepreneur, wife, mom and grammy. My husband Jerry and I live on a 12 acre “spread” just outside of Bend, Oregon. We’ve been here for 25 years now and we raised two sons, Ryan and Dylan, out here. They are both married now and we have three grandsons and we are happy that everyone still lives in Bend!
I grew up on a 350 acre organic cattle ranch near the Oregon Coast. I say “organic” because back then nobody talked about organic gardening, but that’s what we did because nobody had invented Roundup yet to spray on crops and nobody thought about giving antibiotics to cattle. Our cows grazed on canary grass. We had a one acre veggie garden, fruit trees, and lots of wild blackberries and salmonberries for us kids to graze on as well. There were chickens and fresh eggs, too. It was a healthy and great way to grow up.
It wasn’t until I left for college that I started to appreciate how great it was! Dorm food and the discovery of fast food joints wasn’t exactly my downfall, but I quickly realized that growing your own food was at that time not really normal. None of my new college friends had grown up that way, eating veggies just picked from the garden.
After college I went to Alaska and met my future husband who was a commercial fisherman. I worked for a couple of weekly newspapers and eventually got a job as a reporter for the daily Anchorage Times. When Ryan was born I tried putting him in daycare, but couldn’t stand it so I quit my dream job to be a stay at home mom. This was basically unheard of in the mid 1980s when women were supposed to be "having it all."
To be somewhat closer to my mom and dad who lived in Medford, Oregon, we moved to Bend in 1987, about three hours away.
While Jerry was away fishing, I thought I could recreate my childhood gardening experience so my boys could have farm fresh produce like I had. I quickly discovered the climate in Bend is a “challenge” and not at all like gardening on the West side of the Cascade Mountain range. The growing season in Central Oregon is basically June through mid September
Because I have the curiosity of a journalist and have always had an interest in nutrition (I finished my Masters in Holistic Nutrition in 2004) I pay attention to what creates good health and what can lead to bad health. With this website/blog I hope to share useful information and tips for maintaining great health, as well as keep you up to date on projects we are doing with our property. By the way, I was able to “retire” my husband from his long stints of fishing and get him back home to raise the boys with me because I found a home based business that's all about healthy living that still let me be a stay at home mom! Instead of being a kind of stranger who visited us a few times a year, Jerry was able to coach the boys in baseball and basketball and was a totally present Dad in their lives.