Suburban Sodbuster

Natural Beekeeper and Organic Gardener

I grew up on a farm on the edge of the Nebraska sandhills.  A cattle ranch that bears our family name, founded in the late 1800s by my ancestors, is still owned and worked by my cousin.  Life events have put me in the suburbs of a major metropolitan area in middle America, where my wife and I have raised our two kids.  It's in this environment that I work to make as sustainable a life as I can, converting much of our backyard to grow food, including a garden, fruit trees and bee hives.

I attempt to use natural methods, as much as is possible, in my gardening and beekeeping. I garden organically and continue to learn to work with the soil and the plants, without the use of chemical supplements, herbicides or pesticides, to improve our harvest.  Our honey bees are sourced from local colonies through swarms, trap-outs and cut-outs, and are kept, using treatment-free, natural methods, in Layens horizontal hives.