Hi there! We’re Susan and Aaron, the people behind this website. Aaron jokingly gave Susan the nickname “The Tyrant” many years back due to her bossy attitude, but she’s actually a benevolent dictator. If we’re honest, our ducks actually rule our roost, hence the reason there’s a duck wearing a crown in our logo.

We’ve been married since 11-11-11 (hard to forget that anniversary!) but together for a decade prior. That’s to say we’ve spent so much of our lives together, we don’t even have to complete each other’s sentences because we know what the other is thinking before words become necessary. (The Tyrant knew I was thinking about writing that sentence.)

We’re a mixed-species family… We’re parents to a hilarious and highly opinionated wild child as well as a flock of hilarious and highly opinionated domestic ducks. Other creatures in our crew include two cats (who showed up at our door) and a ball python who was gifted to us by our duck keeper. There are rumors and murmurs that a bearded dragon is nigh.

Our young human is no longer diapered and now spends most time outdoors. Our ducks are sometimes diapered, but thankfully spend most of their time outdoors as well.

Susan is the one with the official Biology degree, by way of College of Charleston. She’s also a former ACSM-certified personal trainer and a (currently) really good graphic designer. The Tyrant’s sister, Dr. Lisa Durette, is a nationally renowned child & adolescent psychiatrist who helped us produce some of our parenting resources, specifically Developing Mighty Minds.

Aaron has a degree in Political Science from Furman University, which he used to not go to law school. He’s also a writer and an entrepreneur, making him responsible for getting us into new types of trouble which requires carefully crafted language to justify.

We like to bring nature home, and think that’s a critical component of healthy living. We also recognize that we are a part of nature, which helps clarify how we should relate to ourselves (including our microbial selves), other people, and the broader world.

We enjoy growing and foraging as much of our own food as possible and helping other people do the same. Aaron once founded a farm for a James Beard-nominated restaurant. Therein, he found that selling food wasn’t a good match for him since it took the joy out of the process. Instead, we’d rather teach people to produce and forage food through our website and social media channels rather than sell it to them.

We enjoy deep engagement with our bioregion. Soil on our fingers, waterfall swims, close observations of our regional flora and fauna, learning about the native peoples who lived here thousands of years prior… These things make us profoundly happy and ever-more curious about our (humankind’s) relationship with this little blue dot we all call home. One downside to having a bit of ecological literacy is you live in a world full of wounds that few others can see. It can be maddeningly lonely here. Or sometimes just maddening. But we do our best to intentionally employ rational optimism.

TLDR? We’re entrepreneurial, autodidactic semi-misanthropes who like nature and surrounding ourselves with an abundance of other lifeforms.

This website is a free-to-the-public educational platform; our attempt to share what we see, eat, and learn with you while also attempting to earn an income for our family. We hope our website provides you with an enriched understanding of topics you’re curious about, along with an occasional chuckle. If you find what we share helpful, please consider dropping us a tip to keep the lights flickering and the animals spoiled.

Lastly, don’t forget to check out our sister website, GrowJourney.com, if you aspire to learn no-till organic gardening and regenerative small farming / market gardening.

We appreciate you being here!