Grit Contributors
Kris Wetherbee is a seasoned organic gardener, naturalist, internationally-published writer and author of Attracting Birds, Butterflies & Other Winged Wonders to Your Backyard (Sterling Publishing/2006). She writes frequently in the areas of garden, food, animals/wildlife and outdoor living and has been published in over 50 magazines, including Mother Earth News, Audubon, Herb Companion and Herbs for Health. Born and raised in Southern California, Kris and her husband Rick, a nationally-known photographer, relocated to Camelot, their 38-acre homestead located in the rolling hills of western Oregon. They raise a variety of farm animals along with their three cats and enjoy attracting birds and butterflies to their Mediterranean courtyard garden. For more on Kris and Rick visit www.kriswetherbee.com. |
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George DeVault |
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| Patsy Bell Hobson is a certified Master Gardener emeritus who puts her bachelor’s degree in Mass Media to work as a freelance writer. A lifetime gardener who inherited her mother and grandmother’s love of gardening, Patsy continues to garden despite multiple sclerosis and arthritis. A Missouri resident and career 4-H professional, she launched the Junior Master Gardener program in the Kansas City area. For more on Patsy, please see www.PatsyBell.com. |  |
| Dr. Jon Geller, DVM is an emergency veterinarian from Fort Collins, Colorado, where he lives with his family, a dog and two cats. Before he was an emergency veterinarian, he did house calls and farm calls on critters of all types in Northern Colorado. When he is not patching up injured pets, he answers questions about dog health online at www.Dogchannel.com. Information about his veterinary emergency hospital can be found at www.AnimalEmergencyCenter.net. |  |
| Kristen Davenport raises garlic, goats, geese, chickens, vegetables, cut flowers and several human kids (not necessarily in that order) on a 32-acre farm in the mountains of Northern New Mexico. In her spare time, she also writes for a living, mostly about agriculture and the environment. |  |
| Peripatetic by nature, Linda Shockley grew up in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. She was one of the lucky kids who could walk to school “the creek way,” play unrestricted in the lakes, creeks and forests, and run wild in the neighborhood as long as she was home by dark. She spent 13 years in the southern Rockies of Santa Fe, and time in La Jolla and Oberlin. Now based in New York City, she’s an avid reader, film freak and animal lover, with, yes, a major jones for travel. | |
| Cathey Frei grew up in Memphis but spent most weekends and part of her summers in Mississippi on her grandmother’s or her family’s farm, where she rode horses, tended her 4-H Club Guernsey calf, played hide-and-seek in the hay barn, or had her own “Little Rascal” adventures with her sisters and friends. After graduating from Memphis State, she was a flight attendant for Pan Am. She now has two grown sons and lives with her husband in Virginia, where she teaches English as a Second Language to adult immigrants and is a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. She’s grateful to have experienced life on the farm, from which she draws some of her fondest memories. | |
| Michele Tremaine’s undergraduate studies in art didn’t include watercolor painting, but she fell in love with watercolor more than 30 years ago and never looked back. She raised two children, five dogs, three cats and assorted other creatures, while producing hundreds of paintings and teaching art in the Washington, D.C., suburbs. With the household whittled down to one husband and two dogs, Michele has found time to turn to writing and illustrating children’s books. She’s painted illustrations and covers for children’s books, magazines and other publications, and has written several children’s books and hundreds of art and book reviews. She and her husband are building a house in a tiny village in rural Virginia, where they plan to move when he retires. | |
| Susan Lahey has been writing for newspapers and magazines for more than 20 years. She grew up in Kansas City, Missouri, and briefly owned a farmlet near there with horses, ducks, dogs and a fishing hole before moving to the mountains of Northern New Mexico with her three children. She currently lives and writes in a one-room strawbale, passive solar house where she is working on a book about God called Taos Skies. | |
| Mike Lang is a lifelong Kansan and is currently the landscape manager for a 1,000-acre university campus by day and caretaker of his own quarter-acre piece of the world the rest of the time. A bachelor’s degree in horticulture, and employment as a landscape designer, nursery manager, city horticulturist and an urban forester provide what he calls “a fortunate insight into gardening.” Mike also shares his wisdom about gardening in the Garden Clippings column for our sister publication, Capper’s. When not working in, talking about, or writing about the landscape, he is intent on creating the perfect homemade sausages. |
