This blog is rooted in the Driftless Area that my husband and I fell in love  with on our first date – a bike ride heading west from Madison in 1977.  We bought 44 acres near Ridgeway WI in 2003.

Denise’s yin (master’s degree in environmental journalism and a voracious curiosity) and Doug’s yang (a PhD-trained sense of ecological connectedness and scientific inquiry) are the wellspring of this blog (and our lives).

Buying land catapulted us into a crash course on identifying and protecting its complex ecosystems, figuring out how to fit ourselves in with the smallest possible footprint and contribute to area environmental groups.

This blog unearths our research, hands-on experience and musings including:

• Prairie restoration
• Green architecture
• Gardening
• Vegetarian and locavore lifestyle
• Understanding and responding to climate change
• Citizen Science

We started by building a timber frame barn from which to stage future projects.

Since January 2013, we have been living in Underhill House. Designed by Della Hansmann, our daughter, an architect who was then working with  Whole Trees – Architecture and Construction, you may have seen written up in the New York Times .

The house incorporates:

• unmilled, branching timber frame
• straw bale walls and living roof
• passive solar design
• solar hot water infloor  heat
• slipform local-stone knee walls
• photovoltaic solar electric panels

We broke ground April 2012  and moved in January 2013.

Dear Reader,

JUMP RIGHT IN!

Leave your footprint in these online sands.

Also  subscribe to the RSS Feed so that you don’t miss any updates.