About

A Mountain Hearth is the story of life lived closer to the land.

I am a modern homesteader, outdoor adventurer, and fiber artist in the McKenzie River Valley of Oregon, striving to live a more sustainable life. On this seven-acre homestead in the foothills of the Cascade Mountain Range, we aim to be good stewards of the land and enjoy visits from wild neighbors like elk and bear, bobcat, and osprey. This is not a full-time sustenance homestead, and I often find myself managing a lot of different irons in the fire, and simply doing the best I can with them. I have found that the work of life on the land has many rewards. Some of them are more tangible, like having a warm house in the winter from all the firewood that was cut, stacked and seasoned, or having a root cellar filled with food. Others are less tangible, like the feeling you get from looking around and surveying the life you have made for yourself.  That feeling, my friends, is solid gold.

As our ways of life move farther away from the outdoors, it is becoming more important to find ways to maintain a connection. While our grandmothers’ generation may have lived off the land, gardened, canned, foraged, and cared for the landscapes that sustained them, many of these skills are no longer being practiced. By examining our relationship with the land and how we’re living on it, I believe we’re on the right track towards taking better care of it for generations to come.

I hope you find something that inspires you here. If you are dreaming about living life closer to the land, I encourage you to follow the course of those dreams! Our dreams are only reached if we work towards them, and our progress is measured in the journey and the stories we have to tell along the way.