tl;dr: I’m for light rail and I’m against surveillance state activity in Clark County. Vote for me, and tell your friends to, too.

Here are my responses to OPB’s questions they sent me. (This is what they published, but my only quote is from the League of Women Voters panel.)

1. Given the limited authority the Clark County Council has to make decisions regarding the Interstate Bridge Replacement project and light rail, what would your approach to this issue be if you were elected to the council, and what are your priorities when it comes to the IBR?

My priority is ensuring we meet all residence needs by getting light rail and more active transportation modes in Vancouver as it becomes more urban, as well as supporting it with land use decisions that add more more density near transit.

I don’t drive, and when I lived in the Portland area, I used the MAX, biked, walked, and built my life around transit because the system made it possible. Major cities have already figured out that people need more than one way to get where they’re going, and frankly, Clark County continuing to treat mass transit like it’s some grand experiment is absurd.

Better transit means better access, especially for the 1/3 of people who don’t drive. If we want to fix traffic and parking, we have to make it easier for people to get off the road. With the high costs associated with owning a car, transportation is an affordability issue, especially for people who live on one side of the river and work on the other.

To me, the bigger question is whether Clark County is going to keep planning around car dependence, or start building like we are part of the regional economy we already depend on.

2. Clark County is facing significant budget challenges, yet many residents are wary of tax increases. How would you balance preserving and/or expanding services and limiting tax increases?

Of course residents are wary of tax increases. Most of the county’s available revenue tools are regressive, and everyone is feeling the pinch of inflation and wage stagnation.

I will make decisions through an affordability lens: before the county spends money, the question should be whether it lowers the cost of living for people who live here, protects services people rely on, or prevents higher costs down the line.

That means targeted cuts over across-the-board cuts, not continuing to gut our chronically underfunded parks and public health departments.

For instance, the county recently approved $112,000 a year in Microsoft Copilot AI licenses with no public hearing, justified as a way to “explore the value” of AI while simultaneously planning cuts to every department. On what planet does that make sense? The Sheriff Technology and Equipment Fund takes $289,000 a year from the General Fund with no public accounting, including for Cellebrite, a phone extraction tool the ACLU has flagged for its mass surveillance potential.

That’s not how you build trust during a budget crisis. If the county wants folks to accept tradeoffs, it can’t treat controversial spending decisions as a line item.

3. Do you support the November ballot measure that would require a super-majority council vote to increase taxes?

Clark County already has a problem with councilors using process to hold the county hostage, including refusing to show up to meetings and voting against residents’ interests while claiming fiscal responsibility.

A supermajority requirement would turn that behavior into a governing structure that gives two councilors veto power over future revenue, even when the need is urgent and the public benefit is clear. That is minority rule, not accountability.

I support budget transparency and performance audits. I will never support handing extremists another tool.

4. What do you believe are the best ways to address the need for more affordable housing in Clark County?

Clark County needs to make smaller, more affordable housing much easier to build. I would start with pre-approved ADU and middle housing plans modeled on what Seattle and King County are already doing: approve the designs once, reduce fees for projects that use them, and move those permits faster.

That would make a big difference for homeowners, small builders, nonprofits, and affordable housing providers trying to build ADUs, duplexes, triplexes, cottage clusters, and permanently affordable homes without getting buried in costs and delays.

We also need to protect the affordable housing we still have: manufactured home parks, older apartments, and county-owned land that should be looked at for housing before it gets sold.

This is fundamentally an issue about whether the people who work here, grew up here, and are raising families here can afford to stay. Clark County needs more homes near jobs, schools, and transit, not more sprawl that pushes working families farther out and makes everything more expensive.

Got questions? Ideas? Drop them in the comments.

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P.S. Did you know this isn’t my first time being featured on OPB? Back in March, I had the opportunity to talk about Hearth & Hollow on Thinking Out Loud.

So the local paper endorsed the incumbent.

Honestly? I’m not surprised. The Columbian tends to lean conservative on the best of days, and while they asked plenty of important policy questions, what they didn’t ask seems like a glaring oversight.

If the incumbent is doing such a great job, then why are there three challengers?

The short answer: His voting record + who is funding his campaign.

The 2045 Comp Plan vote is the clearest example of both. The council voted 3-2 to expand the urban growth boundary against their own planning staff’s recommendations, the Agricultural Advisory Commission, and overwhelming public testimony. The deciding vote was his, and the majority of his campaign funding comes from developers.

That vote is one in a longer pattern, and Karissa broke it down in detail when she interviewed me on Everything is Fine in SWWA.

What’s clear is that the decisions being made right now are not being made for the working-class.

Clark County’s future is in our hands

This week, I had the chance to talk to two very different 22-year-olds trying to figure out if Clark County has a future for them.

One is a WSU student who grew up in Uptown, an environmental science major working to bring back the Urban Growers Market, because she wants to find ways to get people her age out of their houses and back into community with each other by doing something they care about.

Another told me he usually didn’t vote. He didn’t feel like it mattered. His biggest issue? He’s working full time and can’t afford to buy a house.

I saw myself in both of their stories, from the optimism and desire to create a better future to still wanting to achieve the American dream, because I graduated during the Great Recession, when most of the work available paid minimum wage and anything that didn’t still didn’t pay enough for me to afford childcare.

Tell me why the only thing that’s changed is that now houses cost almost twice as much.

We are bleeding young talent from this county. People who love it here, who have skills, vision, energy, and roots, who are looking around and asking, “Can I afford to build a life here?”

That should break our hearts. And it should make us angry.

If we want young people to believe voting matters, we have to give them candidates and campaigns willing to fight for the life they’re trying to build.

That’s why every major organization that has weighed in on this race so far has chosen my campaign: seven public endorsements with more to announce next week, from Run for Something, Sierra Club, OneAmerica, Alliance of Gun Responsibility, National Women’s Political Caucus, Love and Justice Alliance, Green Party preferred candidate, 49th LD Democrats, Clark County Democrats (more to be announced next week)

They know I am their best shot at change: the one willing to work for every member of this community, whether or not they were born here or are well connected.

We can do better.

Note: The county’s 2026 total budget is around $885.6 million, with operating expenses around $650 million. Since a majority of the county’s revenue is restricted by funding source (i.e, mental health sales tax revenue pays for housing and behavioral health services only), that leaves the general fund as the main source of discretionary spending revenue. In 2026, the general fund is expected to be $227.6 million, or about 26% of the total budget.

Nearly 70% of the general fund is spent on public safety, which includes the sheriff’s office, jail, courts, probation office and juvenile justice. Yet we know the sheriff’s office needs more deputies, and adding more deputies will create the need for more staffing in the other public safety sectors. Essentially, more deputies equals more arrests, which is more people in the jail and more court cases, which means more judges, more judicial assistants, probation officers, etc.

Should the county council increase funding for public safety beyond the 70% currently allocated? What other funding sources would you like to pursue?

Public safety and law enforcement are not the same thing, and I think the framing of this question conflates the two.

What I want to fund is a fuller picture of public safety: behavioral health services, mental health crisis response, substance use treatment, and housing stability that keeps people out of the system in the first place. ECHO hosted a law enforcement panel in April where officers themselves spoke to how often they respond to calls that are fundamentally mental health or housing crises, not criminal ones. When someone is in crisis, sending an armed deputy is not the safest or most effective response.

The county has been collecting roughly $6.5 million a year through the housing and behavioral health sales tax since April 2026, and the request for proposals to distribute that funding only opened July 1st. That money needs to get into the hands of the organizations doing this work as quickly as possible. It is one of the most direct ways to reduce pressure on law enforcement while improving outcomes for the people our deputies are already showing up for.

Gun violence, homelessness, and mental health crises share the same roots: housing and economic insecurity. If we respond to those conditions with more enforcement, we are not solving anything. The Alliance for Gun Responsibility, one of my endorsers, lays out the solution clearly:

“Invest in upstream solutions, such as education, economic opportunities, mental health resources, and housing stability, that address root causes and build thriving communities.”

I am also watching House Bill 2559, which would give counties the authority to tax short-term rentals up to 4% for affordable housing. With urban counties in Washington chronically underfunded, we need additional revenue tools that don’t rely on a regressive tax structure.

When we invest in economic opportunity, affordable housing, and accessible care, we reduce the pressure that eventually shows up as emergency calls, court cases, and jail beds.

That is a better return on public investment, and that is what public safety means to me.

Due to a budget shortfall, Clark County will likely have to cut between 2 to 3 percent of its annual budget during the next budget cycle. Would you support an across the board cut to all departments, or would you prefer targeted cuts to specific programs and/or departments? If you prefer targeted cuts, what specific programs or departments would you cut?

I’d take targeted cuts over across-the-board ones, starting with spending that shouldn’t have been approved in the first place. The county approved $112,000 a year in Microsoft Copilot AI licenses on a consent agenda in May with no public hearing, justified as a way to “explore the value” of AI while simultaneously planning cuts to every department.

The Sheriff Technology and Equipment Fund takes $289,000 a year from the General Fund with no public accounting of what it purchases, including Cellebrite, a digital intelligence platform capable of extracting data from any cell phone, flagged by civil liberties organizations for its mass surveillance potential. That fund needs a full audit.

The $4.9 million facilities overhead fund warrants an efficiency review. But the truth is targeted cuts won’t close a structural deficit on their own, and residents are already stretched thin while the county has very few revenue tools that don’t add more of a burden to those struggling the most.

An additional piece of legislation worth noting here: HB 2442 restructures how subordinate levies interact with the property tax cap to create headroom in 2027 without new taxes.

Residents often say developers have too much sway over what projects the county approves – whether that’s the county council, planning commission or staff decisions. How will you balance the needs of residents with those of the development community?

They absolutely do, and the 2045 Comp Plan vote is the clearest example. The deciding vote came from the incumbent, a BIA member who has received the majority of their campaign funding from developers; the council voted 3-2 against their own studies, the Agricultural Advisory Commission, and overwhelming public commentary.

The BIA is now pushing to weaken concurrency standards, the requirements that roads, water, and sewer capacity exist before new development is approved. Loosen those and it becomes faster and cheaper to build at the edges of the county while existing residents absorb the infrastructure costs.

As a working-class candidate who doesn’t take developer money, I can represent what residents actually want without second-guessing whose interests I’m serving. I’ll work with developers committed to smart, sustainable growth: infill, middle housing, affordable housing near jobs and transit, and oppose the projects that don’t.

Affordable housing remains out of reach for many residents, especially younger and lower-income residents. What should the county council do to spur affordable housing development?

The county built itself into this corner with decades of single-family zoning and large-lot development, leaving almost nothing affordable for younger buyers or lower-income renters.

Seattle has shown us what’s possible: a library of pre-approved plans for ADUs and middle housing that lets builders skip custom design review and get to construction faster. Clark County has been moving in this direction, and I want to see it finished and expanded, with reduced fees for anyone using a pre-approved design.

Permitting is a serious barrier for small-scale builders who aren’t developers, and removing that friction is one of the most direct things the council can do. I want to strengthen the county’s partnership with the Vancouver Housing Authority and organizations like Proud Ground, which holds land in a community trust so homes stay permanently affordable for the next buyer, not just the first.

Final thoughts

Of all of the panels I’ve done so far, the one at The Columbian was actually the most enjoyable for me in a lot of ways. I left feeling like I had more in common with the candidates than I expected. (I was particularly surprised to find how often I agreed with the Republican candidate on what isn’t working, although we have wildly different ideas on how to address the same issue.)

But the truth is that if we vote for more of the same, we’re going to get more of the same, and frankly, Clark County can’t afford that.

With more residents being forced onto the street due to housing costs, we desperately need more creative and collaborative solutions across the board, and as a lifelong creative professional with a spine of steel, I am the candidate best suited for the job.

This is not a time for business as usual. This is a time to decide whether local government is going to keep perpetuating the status quo or fight for their future. I’m choosing the fight, and I hope you’ll join me.

Donate to the campaign here

It was the last straw.

The vote was part of something bigger: the 2025 County Comprehensive Plan Update, a 20-year land use blueprint that was supposed to be finished in 2025, has already been pushed back multiple times, and is now set for October 6, 2026 at the earliest. That’s assuming it doesn’t get tied up in a lawsuit first, because the council’s vote appears to directly contradict state law under the Growth Management Act.

In a 3-2 vote, the council chose to expand urban growth boundaries by over 1,000 acres and de-designate hundreds of acres of prime agricultural land. This went against the county’s own Agricultural Lands Study, the recommendations of the Agricultural Advisory Commission, and the overwhelming testimony of residents who showed up to say no. Their own modeling showed there’s enough room for projected growth within existing boundaries. The expansion wasn’t necessary. They did it anyway. And in the process, they stripped out the meaningful greenhouse gas reduction goals the county’s own climate advisory group had recommended.

Even though I’m an urban farmer, the idea of more of our farmland being sacrificed so that developers can build more million-dollar homes, huge warehouses, and drive-thru chains makes me sick.

Over the past year, I’ve been getting to know the local farming community. I’m always curious about people’s stories of how they started farming, but also how they can afford to farm, because I can tell you from my own experience that the margins aren’t great for small farms. And the more I learn, the harder it is to watch more of this land disappear.

So how are some of Clark County’s small farms making it work?

• Previously successful career, moved out of the big city, and started a flower farm.

• Family farm that the grandparents paid off, now they’re working there.

• Special long-term land leasing deal that came with housing.

• Day job with a farm on the side.

• A partner with a job that pays the bills that allows the other spouse to farm.

Notice what’s not on that list: someone who just decided to farm and made it work on the farm’s income alone.

You don’t need me to tell you land is expensive. It’s extremely difficult to pay a mortgage and make enough of a profit to live on. (And really, isn’t that true for most folks with regular jobs, too?)

And it’s only getting harder, because farmers aren’t the only ones who want this land.

When a developer comes knocking with more money than any farmer could match, it takes a lot to say no, and most people aren’t in a position to do that. Some of these are family farms that have been here for generations, and even they’re feeling the squeeze. Farmers who want to stay and farm have to make the math work, and right now the math barely works even with a second job or help from family. People who want to get into farming here are locked out before they even get started. Every acre that goes to a warehouse or a subdivision is gone - and it rarely comes back.

But this isn’t really a story about farming. It’s a story about who gets to decide what this county looks like, who profits when those decisions get made, and whether regular people have any say in it at all. The farmers are just a clear example of what happens when the answer to all three of those questions is the same small group of people.

So who wants to build on that land anyway?

Let’s talk about the Building Industry Association of Clark County (BIA).

You can read about the group yourself and see how they describe their activities.

So why should you care about this random group? Because we have two county councilors with ties to BIA, which sure seems like a massive conflict of interest in favor of developers.

Here’s the thing about BIA’s framing: it sounds like they’re fighting for you.

Homeownership, the American dream, affordability, community. It’s what we all want, right?

But read it again and notice who’s actually in the room. Their members are builders, contractors, realtors, suppliers, and developers. Their political arm, BIG PAC, funds candidates who will expand the urban growth boundary by reducing regulations, impact fees, and land-use restrictions on the building industry (e.g. BIA members). That is not the same thing as making homes affordable for the people who want to buy them.

While new land is secured for developing, the people who need affordable housing are left waiting. The only ones who stand to benefit are the people who already own the land and the developers who end up buying it. Meanwhile, BIA is lobbying to cut the fees that would at least make sure new development pays its own way. Impact fees are what fund roads, parks, and utilities when new development goes in. When BIA lobbies to reduce or eliminate them, the cost doesn’t disappear. It gets shifted onto existing residents and the public budget.

The developer’s margin improves. Your taxes go up.

And that’s before we get to the part where two of the five people who vote on Clark County’s land use policy have ties to BIA and it’s no secret.BIA is explicit about their strategy to actively lobby on land use policy: it “begins in our local jurisdictions,” they “leverage well-established relationships with elected officials,” and their faces are “seen at critical meetings.”

They are describing, in their own words, exactly the kind of access and influence that should make every voter in this county uncomfortable.

That’s why I filed to run for Clark County Council, District 1 last week.

Here’s what you should know about me: I’ve spent my career working with mission-driven small business owners and authors, because I have always been drawn to people and projects that are building something that matters rather than just building something profitable.

That’s shaped how I see the world, and it’s shaped how I see what’s happening in this county. Fifteen years of building strategy for small businesses and authors has also taught me how narratives get constructed, who benefits from them, and how to dismantle the ones that don’t hold up.

Hearth & Hollow came from the same place. It’s a micronursery and plant CSA I run out of my backyard in Vancouver, built around the belief that everyone should be able to grow their own food, and that people who want to learn shouldn’t have to figure it out alone. Like a lot of people in this region, my family moved here when we were ready to buy a house because Clark County was somewhere we could afford. It ended up being the best thing that could have possibly happened to us. We’re building our lives and raising our kids here, and we are not interested in watching this county become the next place people get priced out of.

I’m not going to pretend I’ve been showing up to county meetings for a decade. What I have been doing is paying attention, submitting public comments, learning how these systems work, and watching the council serve narrower and narrower portions of its constituents. The gap between what residents want and what the council does has grown.

For a long time, I told myself I could have more of an impact outside of government than in it. I no longer believe that.

I’m running because District 1 needs someone who will put protecting our farmland, green space, and waterways at the center of every growth decision, not as an afterthought. Housing and affordability matter, and there are solutions that don’t require paving over what makes this county worth living in: infill development, missing middle housing, ADUs, tiny houses, building on land that’s already inside the urban boundary. Paving over farmland isn’t a housing policy. It’s a windfall for developers, and the bill falls on the rest of us. Once I understood what was at stake, I couldn’t justify staying on the sidelines.

What I didn’t expect was how fast something shifted once I started telling people I was running. I showed up to a couple of campaign kickoffs to start meeting people already working in this space, and total strangers sat down and talked with me about what they believed in. Many of them shared those values. Some of them are already raising their hand to help.

That doesn’t happen by accident. This county is hungry for people who show up and actually do what they say they’re going to do - and for more ways to easily get involved.

What I keep hearing from people who’ve been mostly on the sidelines up until now is that it’s hard to track what is happening here. They want to pay attention, and they try to but with minimal news coverage here, it’s challenging for even the most tapped in of us to know what all is happening around town.

The problem has never been that people don’t care; it’s that this information is hard to find. My commitment, in this campaign and if I’m elected, is to show up and do my damnedest to change that by finding practical ways for us to do as much good around Clark County as possible over the next few months.

So consider this my invitation to join me.

We must protect our farmland, clean water and air, and the next generation’s right to a place that is at least as vibrant and livable as it is now. We need to take each other into account, and we need to hold each other to account.

Three of the councilors who cast that vote are on the ballot this August. All three of those seats are up for grabs. This one is mine to fight for.

Voting against your own studies, ignoring public testimony, and acting in the interest of developers over residents should have consequences. Right now, it largely doesn’t. We need to change that, and it starts with the August primary.

The special interests who benefit from the status quo are already organized. They are already funded. They have been in that room for years. The only thing they don’t have is a county full of people who are paying attention and ready to vote like it matters. That’s what we’re building.

So share this. Show up in August. Donate if you can. Volunteer, even if you’re not sure you’re ready. Help make sure the people in your life know what’s at stake, because most of them don’t. Not yet. Follow @dusti4clarkcounty on Instagram and help get this in front of people who might not otherwise see it.

Let’s get to work.

Join the campaign

This weekend has been a mad dash to get my office put together, because I have a photojournalist coming over next week, and I would like to look like things are marginally more together than they feel like they are at the moment.

It’s been busy enough that I almost cancelled my early birthday lunch with a couple of dear friends, but I knew I’d regret it if I cancelled it.

We got to Hat Yai, the sun came out, and we spent the next two hours talking about what we’ve been doing in the wake of another January that felt like a year.

She’s been organizing at a school, making sure we have people ready to help kids trying to get home safely. How she’d barely missed being teargassed at yesterday’s peaceful protest.

I talked about spreading the word about our library board meeting such that we packed the entire room - and my friend who was on the board resigned in protest of the Moms For Liberty women on there actively ignoring and voting outside of the community’s interests.

She talked about emergency preparedness and divesting from companies harming all of us.

We all talked about how much we need the men around us to step up their activism.

We exchanged resources, talked about the things we heard going on, the things that were upsetting us, and how we were going to get more of our friends involved.

And I left so buoyed, so relieved, because I was reminded that we are not alone. We are building something new, piece by piece, and nothing can stop the good that is coming as a direct response to the chaos they are trying to bring down on us.

I am proud of how I am showing up in the face of all of this. Because while what I’m doing alone will never be enough, it doesn’t have to be - because we’re doing it together.

If you’re struggling right now, call your friend who gets it. Join Indivisible for easy actions you can start taking today. And since you’re here, here are some ways that I’d love to work together on this with you.

Ways to get involved:

- In case you’ve missed it, I’m running an edible garden planning workshop on Zoom 2/3-2/5. (If cost is an issue, hmu. Scholarships are available.)

- PDX/Vancouver folks: I’m cohosting a seed swap gardening get together at Kindred 2/15. It won’t be the only live event happening, so get on the Hearth & Hollow email list if you want in on those.

- A friend and I are working on a divestment guide to make it really easy for all of us to stop giving bad people money. We’re going to be looking for contributors, so if that’s something you’re into, hmu.

Last weekend, I gave my first talk for Hearth & Hollow at PDX Women’s Convergence.

It was my first time presenting something that wasn’t marketing or productivity related, and honestly, I’m still a little bit in shock from the whole experience because everything about it just felt so… natural.

I didn’t religiously prep or memorize a script.

I didn’t wear makeup (and didn’t feel the unspoken pressure of needing to).

I didn’t feel like I had anything to prove.

And when I was finished, the questions and excitement in the room were palpable. The talk had honed in on 3 small ways to increase food security, and somewhere along the way, it became much more than that.

Business, for me, has always been about much more than making money.

It’s how I’ve met all of my best friends, how I’ve gotten to travel, how I’ve made my mark on the world around me. And small business in particular is endlessly interesting to me because we all get to decide exactly what we want to do and who we want to be and how we want to make an impact in our communities.

But the message I had for the women in that room was not about business or productivity, because the truth is that I think most of us have heard about enough inspirational marketing drivel.

My message was to plant something - just like the divine download I got this time last year that made me buy a greenhouse.

I wasn’t worried about looking like an internet celebrity in a power suit or “providing enough value”, because I’m finally moving into the work that I was made for - and I don’t have to make meaning around it.

It’s not that talking about marketing doesn’t matter. If you’re reading this, chances are very high that you’re a small business owner, and you’re already aware marketing matters very much, at least until you’ve become a known entity.

But there was just something so different about going up there and sharing a message that is so inherently practical, getting the response I did, and realizing how hungry we are for something that isn’t “optimize your life” or “fix your mindset.”

The point of my talk wasn’t to inspire anyone - it was to get them to do something. It was to remind them that we have more agency than we think, and that food is a place where that agency has radical and far-reaching consequences in the best way.

And if you’re ready to do something, too, here’s the practical next step; I’m hosting a 3-day workshop next week to help you plan your 2026 garden.

It doesn’t matter if you’ve got a tiny balcony or an overwhelmingly large yard - good planning now will ensure you can feed yourself and your neighbors, no matter what this year hands you.

Sliding scale pricing is available, and everything will be recorded. You’ll also receive worksheets and templates so you can take what you learn and start using it immediately.

Let’s Grow Some Food: Feb 3–5 at 2:30pm PST

This is a three-day workshop series to help you plan your edible garden so you can feed yourself and your community.

If you’ve been thinking about starting a garden this year but have no idea where to start, if you tried planting seeds before and nothing sprouted, or if you’re tired of impulse-buying sad, diseased transplants at big-box stores, this was built for you.

Over three days, we’re going to plan a garden that actually fits your life based on your space, time, and budget (turns out all the productivity stuff came in handy. We’ll build a planting schedule working backwards from harvest, and we’ll deal with the stuff that stops people every single spring, like “I kill everything,” “I have no space,” and “I have no time.”

Here’s what we’re doing:

• Day 1 (Feb 3): Why this matters + what you’re working with. We’ll figure out your zone, assess your space and light, get honest about your constraints, and decide what you’re actually growing for. You’ll leave with a crop list that makes sense for you and a seed shopping list.

• Day 2 (Feb 4): Make your actual plan. We’ll map your garden layout, then build a week-by-week planting calendar that accounts for succession planting and your real schedule. You’ll leave with a drawn plan and a planting schedule for your zone.

• Day 3 (Feb 5): Seed starting without the bullshit. I’ll show you my seed-starting setup, we’ll build a shopping list with actual costs, we’ll talk through budget-friendly alternatives, and you’ll leave with a troubleshooting guide plus the confidence to start seeds on your own.

See you in there,

Dusti

P.S. If you want to attend but the sliding scale still isn’t workable right now, email me. I have a few scholarship spots, and I’d rather have you in the room than miss you over money.

2025 broke something open for me. I needed to do something that felt like resistance and reciprocity at the same time, something that built community instead of just talking about it. So I started growing food in my backyard, and it turns out a lot of you wanted to do that, too.

What started as a side quest became a full season of experiments: starting as many seeds as I could get my hands on, selling at markets, getting a permit to make jam, going on a slug-destroying mission, and accidentally selling thyme as cucamelons because seed packets do not, in fact, always contain the correct seeds. (If this was you and I haven’t fixed it yet, hmu—I will give you a bunch of plants to make up for it this spring.)

When I started, I barely knew what I was doing. But by the end of the season, I discovered I’m actually pretty good at this. And in 2026, I want to take it even further.

So here’s the tl;dr: I’m launching a plant CSA.

CSA stands for community supported agriculture. In case you’re not familiar with the model, the way it works is you support a farm at the beginning of the season and get a box of fruits and veggies all spring and summer long. A plant CSA is the same, but instead of vegetables, you get plant starts.

What I learned this year

When I set up that 20x10 greenhouse in my backyard in February, I had no idea what I was getting into. I just knew I needed to do something with my hands that wasn’t typing on a keyboard or doom-scrolling the news.

I started seeds. A lot of seeds. Over 200 varieties, actually, because apparently when the universe tells you to plant something, I take it literally.

Here’s what I learned:

• Slugs are demons sent to destroy your poor little plant babies, and the only way to win is to go full scorched earth on their asses at dawn with a headlamp and the cheapest beer known to man. (Can confirm: they do not appreciate an IPA.)

• Seed packets lie. Or at least, sometimes they contain the wrong seeds. Which is how I accidentally sold thyme as cucamelons and had to offer plant reparations to very confused customers.

• Starting plants from seed is wildly different than buying transplants. You get varieties that actually taste good, not varieties bred to survive a cross-country truck ride. You get to time them to your actual season, not whatever the big box store decided to stock in March. And you get to know exactly what went into the soil, which matters when you’re feeding your family.

I also learned I’m actually good at this. By the end of the season, I could curate a selection of plants for someone’s shady backyard (because most of mine is) or their full-sun balcony or their first-time-gardener anxiety.

And people kept showing up. At markets, at my porch, in my DMs. They wanted to grow food. They wanted to know how they could help get people fed. They wanted to support someone local instead of handing their money to a corporation that doesn’t give a shit about our community.

That’s when I realized this wasn’t just a side quest anymore.

Why plant CSAs matter

Most people think of CSAs as the box of vegetables you pick up every week from a farm. And that model is great, it really is. I get one as well! But a plant CSA does something different.

It teaches you to grow your own food.

Instead of being dependent on the farm or the store or the supply chain, you’re building your own capacity to feed yourself. You’re learning what grows well in your specific microclimate. You’re figuring out how to work with the seasons instead of against them. You’re developing skills that compound over time.

And here’s the thing: when you start your own plants from seed, or when you buy starts from someone local who’s starting them for you, you’re opting out of an extractive system that prioritizes shelf life over flavor, monoculture over biodiversity, and profit over people.

Buy local isn’t a platitude. Buy local is a battle cry.

It means your money stays in the community. It means you know the person who grew your food or started your plants. That when shit hits the fan (and let’s be real, it keeps hitting the fan), you’ve got relationships and skills and a network of people who can help each other survive.

This is mutual aid in practice. This is food sovereignty. This is what it looks like to build the world we want to live in, one tomato plant at a time.

What’s different about this CSA

I’m not just handing you a box of random plants and wishing you luck.

With over 200 varieties of seeds to choose from and counting, you can either pick exactly what you want to grow or let me curate a selection for you based on what thrives in that season. If there’s something specific you’re after and you’ve got seeds, I can start those for you too, or I’ll source them depending on availability and interest.

Every share comes with a grower’s guide. Simple instructions for planting, tending, and harvesting each quarter’s plants. No jargon, no assuming you know what “hardening off” means, no making you feel like an idiot if you’ve never grown food before.

And I’m here as a resource all season long. Got questions? Ask me. Your lettuce bolting? Let’s troubleshoot. Your tomatoes look weird? Send me a photo. This isn’t a transaction. It’s a relationship.

I’m also planning a celebration for CSA members this summer. Because building connection is as much a part of this as growing food. I want this to feel like the kind of IRL community that sustains us when so much else feels like it’s falling apart.

And if you’re a CSA member and you get the itch for an impulse plant buy at the market (we’ve all been there), you’ll get 20% off any additional starts all season long.

Who this is for

Families who want to grow more of what they eat, no matter the size of your space.

Folks who buy transplants at big box stores and would rather support someone in their community so their dollars stay local.

Folks who want to know exactly how and where their starts are grown.

Beginners who want support to start gardening without overwhelm.

Busy people who care about health and sustainability but need a simple system.

People who are tired of feeling helpless and want to do something tangible to build resilience in their own life and their community.

How it works

The season runs from spring through fall across three quarters.

Spring (Feb–Apr): Expect lettuces, brassicas, herbs, peas, carrots, and more. Cool-season crops that thrive in our Pacific Northwest springs.

Summer (May–Jul): Think tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, beans, and summer herbs. The heavy hitters that need warmth and sun.

Fall (Aug–Oct): Late greens, root vegetables, and fall crops to carry you into winter. The stuff that tastes better after a frost.

Each quarter is timed to what thrives in that season, so you’re always planting at the right time. No more guessing. No more panic-planting in chaotic spring weather because the big box store stocked tomatoes in March and you thought that meant it was time.

Small Share: 9 plants per quarter, $50 + tax per quarter OR $127.50 + tax for the full season (15% savings)

Large Share: 18 plants per quarter, $75 + tax per quarter OR $191.25 + tax for the full season (15% savings)

At $5.50 per plant (small share) or roughly $4.15 per plant (large share with full season discount), the pricing is competitive with big box stores. But these are organic, locally grown, and selected for flavor and resilience, not shelf life.

I use organic soil, as well as either secondhand plastic pots or OMRI-certified Fertil pots that decompose in place (great for items that typically don’t like being transplanted).

Shares are available starting mid-February. Porch pickup at my place (SE Vancouver, Ellsworth neighborhood) happens whenever works for you, just give me a day or so of notice. If you’re choosing your own plants, I’ll have Sundays available for that. Vancouver Farmers Market pickup is Saturdays starting 2/21/26. Kindred Homestead Supply is coming soon, details TBD.

Want to sweeten the deal? You can add a jar of my raspberry jam to your CSA share, or grab one now as a holiday gift. It’s small-batch, made with organic fruit, and honestly, it’s the kind of thing you’ll want to hoard for yourself.

What this is really about

Here’s what I’ve been thinking about: most of us feel like we’re supposed to have it all figured out before we start. Like we need to know every variety, have the perfect setup, understand every pest and disease before we’re allowed to grow food.

But that’s not how this works. Growing food is about showing up and learning as you go. It’s about building the capacity to feed yourself and your people. It’s about creating systems that make you less dependent on supply chains that are increasingly fragile and corporations that don’t give a shit about you.

This season taught me that the best way to combat despair is to build something tangible. Not just theorize about it or post about it or wait for the perfect moment. Just start.

I want Hearth & Hollow to be a resource, a connector, and a champion for people who are ready to do that. Who want to grow food but don’t know where to start. Who care about where their dollars go and who they’re supporting. Who understand that local food systems aren’t just nice to have, they’re essential infrastructure for whatever comes next.

Because here’s the truth: I don’t know what 2026 is going to bring. None of us do. But I know that people who can grow food, who know their neighbors, who’ve built relationships with local growers and makers, are going to be better positioned to weather whatever comes.

This isn’t doom and gloom. This is practical resilience. This is what it looks like to take care of each other when institutions fail us. This is how we build the kind of community that can actually sustain us.

And if along the way we get to eat heirloom tomatoes that taste like summer and teach our kids that food comes from soil and not from Amazon, that’s not a bad side effect.

What’s next

The CSA is already about half sold out. Spots are limited to 25 subscriptions in 2026, because I want to keep this small enough that I can actually deliver on the support and community I’m promising.

If this sounds like your kind of thing, grab a spot soon. If you’re not ready to commit but want to stay in the loop, subscribe to this Substack.

A quick thank you to everyone who’s been here while I’ve figured this out. You’ve watched me pivot, experiment, occasionally fuck up seed packets, and still show up. That kind of support doesn’t go unnoticed. Whether you bought a plant, shared a post, or just cheered me on from the sidelines, you’re part of why this is working.

Either way, thank you for being here and for watching this unfold. It means more than you know.

It’s that time of year where I write my annual intro for a program I’m in, but this year, it really feels like a reintroduction on so many levels.

Hi, I’m Dusti, and on my business card - the first one I’ve had in years - it says I’m a grower, writer, activist, and marketer.

If you’re new here, that probably checks out. If you’ve been here a while and find yourself popping an eyebrow and asking, “Are you sure?” I’d respect that, too.

Because PHEW has this been a wild year and a half or so.

I’ve made a multitude of plans and thrown them out for as many reasons. Things that felt like a sure bet at the moment had a bat taken to them over and over again. People I thought were on my team demonstrated they very much weren’t.

Like many others who saw the writing on the wall with the election, the end of 2024 and early 2025 felt like a reckoning I wasn’t ready for, lifting me up by my collar and letting my feet dangle underneath me while I attempted to find my footing.

But if I’m honest, I’d been flailing since a trip to NYC May 2024 that changed everything for me, and after that, I spent a lot of time grieving the lives I wasn’t living.

You ever been some place and instantly knew you belonged there? Take that knowing, add a baby, a complicated custody situation, and losing most of your income, knowing you need to change careers, and it’s a perfect recipe for an extended existential crisis.

I wasn’t where I was supposed to be or doing what I was supposed to be doing. The way forward? Not exactly clear, and I felt pinned down by a million different things.

That grief was real and necessary, but it couldn’t be where I stayed.

But when the inauguration happened this past January, I had a download from the universe that wouldn’t shut up, and it said, “Plant something.”

In February, I bought the biggest greenhouse I could fit in my backyard, a hydroponic unit, and decided to start seeds for me and anyone I knew who wanted to grow their own food.

By March, the project had a name and a longing.

By May, I was selling plants at markets.

By September, I was finally ready to commit fully to Hearth & Hollow - whatever it ends up deciding it wants to be.

That’s when things really started to clear up for me.

Hearth & Hollow is the new business that was born out of my need to meet the moment with action and a return to the work that’s in my blood - growing food, just like my great-grandparents who treated their backyard like a small farm. It’s a plant nursery and CSA that’s rooted in the belief that growing food is an act of resistance and resilience - a way to build community, reclaim agency, and create the kind of future we want to live in. But it’s bigger than just selling plants. I want to be a resource, connector, and champion for the movement towards local food sovereignty, using my marketing background for good to amplify all the incredible work happening in our community and why it matters so much.

I also own the reinvention co, the home of my marketing work since 2011. I work with small businesses who’d rather work with one wildly efficient and highly competent person than an expensive agency, and while I don’t talk about marketing as much as I used to, you can still pay me to help you with that. The catch is we have to be a values match, because I will not spend one more second of my life using my powers of communication and connection for anything that isn’t carrying us towards a more equitable world for all.

Right now, I’m showing up to holiday markets selling jam and plant CSA shares, planning out next year’s garden and planting schedule, helping my middle kiddo figure out the upcoming transition into high school, and desperately needing my toddler to sleep past 4:00am.

And as my older kids prepare to launch into the world, I’m acutely aware that the work I’m doing now isn’t just about me finding my way back to meaningful work - it’s about showing them what it looks like to meet a moment with courage and action. To pivot when you need to. To build something that matters even when it’s hard and uncertain. Because what kind of world am I sending them into, and what kind of example am I setting for how to show up in it?

This is my duty to them: to fight for a world worth inheriting, and to demonstrate that when things feel impossible, you plant something anyway.

If you would have told me this time last year I’d be a vendor at the local farmers market, I would have laughed in your face, but it looks like the universe is laughing in mine, because wow - what a year. What a pivot! What a relief to find out that perhaps I was closer than I thought this whole time to getting back to work that is truly meaningful and making a difference in my community.

It’s way bigger than jam, bigger than a plant CSA, and bigger than me.

We are living in times where there is so much change afoot, and we have the chance to make a difference on a scale we haven’t seen in my lifetime. I’m choosing to believe that is the silver lining of this year.

Who would have dreamed we could have a charming, socialist mayor leading New York? Or that our communities would come together to feed each other after Republicans voted to take food out of the mouths of children? Or that our cities would rise up to fight the fascists in such incredible and necessary ways?

We have so much work to do to ensure America becomes what she always wanted to be, and it feels like I’ve begun to find my place in that story - and in many ways, my own, too.

This past year, I’ve been feeling my way through the dark, following my feet towards the next right thing like a bright indistinct light in the distance.

But in 2026? Those steps are landing with a confidence and sure-footedness, because I know where I’m going.

So if you’re wondering what I’m up to these days or how you can be part of it, here’s where we are:

What I can help you with:

• Creating a plan you’ll actually use, whether it’s a marketing plan for your business or a planting plan for your garden.

• Nonfiction book marketing campaigns that are as focused on selling your programs as they are books

• Creating resources to help your community find resources

Ways we can work together:

• Invite me to speak at your organization

• Buy (or sponsor) a plant CSA spot, seed sprouting kit, or jam

• Commission a custom planting plan for your garden

If you’re local to me:

• Visit me at the Vancouver Farmers Market

• Connect with me about community food sovereignty initiatives

• Reach out! I’m deeply interested in collabs with folks who care about these topics, too.

Questions I’m sitting with:

• How can I have the biggest impact in building community resilience and food security?

• Who do I want to become as I step more fully into this work?

• Who are the right collaborators and community members to build this vision with?

And if you’re still here reading this, I want to say thank you for sticking with me. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt so scattered/torn/unclear, but I continue to be reminded that clarity comes from action, not certainty.

I’m not the same person I was this time last year on so many levels - not least of which includes coming to terms with motherhood in a new way, a style transformation, losing weight, unexpectedly starting a new business, and getting real about my queer identity. The in-between space that is Not Knowing isn’t one I feel comfortable in, but it’s also not something that can be rushed or tied up into a nice, neat story before it’s ready.

What I do know is this: I don’t need to have all the answers to start doing the work. I just need to show up, keep planting, and trust that the path reveals itself to those willing to walk it.

So here I am. A grower, writer, activist, and marketer who’s beginning to learn how to live into all of those identities at once - not because it’s easy, but because it’s necessary.

Welcome to the reinvention.

At the end of last week, I found myself in quite the bind.

Within about a 2-hour span, I heard back that my cottage permit for the candied jalapeños was rejected, my au pair went down with strep throat, and now I needed to pack for my sister’s destination wedding that we were driving to somewhere in the middle of taking care of a toddler and wrapping up some last business related items I needed to get out the door.

Suffice it to say, none of those things got out the door (except for the family and I, who made it to the wedding and had a lovely time).

But yesterday, I sat down at my desk, fully aware that I had some decisions to make if I want to be able to participate in holiday markets as ​Hearth & Hollow​ this year.

I’d already talked to the lady who denied my application, and she was, regrettably, really lovely and also correct about my application misstep, which meant I needed to look at my options.

But even after talking through my potential paths with my bestie, the way forward didn’t seem especially clear.

And that’s my cue to take a walk, get outside, and get some sleep.

The pause before finding the next right thing

When I decided I was going all in on Hearth & Hollow in early September, so much just instantly cleared up for me. It’s almost like having a more singular focus makes a lot of things a lot easier. (Insert something annoying but true about picking a niche here.)

So how do you decide? What do you do when you hit a roadblock?

I know for me, when I keep following that next thread, that next right thing, that’s when I am at my best, stay in flow, and generally find the most satisfaction. But/and/also, things don’t always go right the first time.

So what do you do?

A peek inside my brain and levels of decision making

Different decisions require different approaches, but for this one, here’s how it went.

1. Consider there may be competing truths.

Sitting at my desk, if I look to the left I can see 200 mason jars all boxed up in the corner of the room with my canning equipment on top of it; to the right, I’ve got 100 tomato starts, the first batch of which is going out to my first wholesale client in the next couple of days.

Besides being an obvious visual metaphor, it’s the truth of the situation.

I could get my full food processor license (but it’s going to take a while and I’d miss the holiday season). I could submit a different recipe if I really wanted to do the cottage permit. I could get a co-packer, but that’d be a lot of upfront capital. I’ve also got this big ass pile of jars just sitting here, so like, maybe I do something else with them?

There’s more than one way I can move forward here, and more than one of them could work well. Given that I have several viable options with pros and cons, now’s a good time to remember why I’m doing this at all.

2. Get back to the mission.

Hearth & Hollow’s mission statement is: To help local families grow their own food through seasonal plant starts, CSA shares, and community-rooted support—so we can live more seasonally, eat well, and root where we are.

So if that’s true, I can run my options through that as a filter. Will making preserves directly serve the mission? No. However, because Hearth & Hollow is an inherently seasonal business, I need revenue-driving options for winter.

The candied jalapeños were incredible for getting people back to my booth by way of samples so I could talk to them about the plant CSA, and we got such a strong response to them that it felt like it was a solid next step.

But you know what else always gets a solid response? My raspberry jam. The jars I have are too big for that, but you know what they are actually the perfect size for? Growing sprouts.

So given my quick timeline if I want to hit holiday markets, what’s the fastest path forward to getting people fed?

3. Short-term projects vs. Long-term wins

Let’s be real. I’ve only got a week left to apply to most holiday markets unless I can pull some strings with friends, which means I’ve got to have an offer in place fast whether it’s preserves or something else.

To get the license for candied jalapeños, I’m looking at 8-12 weeks of lead time, a ton of fees, a class I’d have to take, and a whole lotta hoops to jump through. Considering I’ve got a separate opportunity to expand my wholesale tomato start production that will require a similar amount of hoop-jumping, this is looking like a “pick my battles” scenario now.

Because I’ve already started the process with the cottage permit, I’m halfway there (even with a label redesign) and could get it handled quickly enough to at least have jam ready to sell in December.

But now that little niggling idea about the sprouts won’t go away, especially because SNAP benefits won’t go out in November thanks to the GOP’s unwavering commitment to funding war and lining billionaires’ pockets with our tax money instead of feeding this country’s people.

With basic instructions, even a child could grow fresh veggies in a windowsill with a sprouting kit.

…And that actually solves a problem I had earlier this year, which is responding to the common refrains of, “I have no space for a garden” or “I kill everything”. Growing sprouts is as set-it-and-forget-it as it gets with gardening (except maybe the raspberries in my backyard).

So what if I made these into gift baskets? What if I had a buy one, donate one option? What if those jars became another way I could feed and educate people indirectly?

Now we’re talking, baby.

Making the pivot official

So here’s where I landed: I’m submitting the cottage permit for raspberry jam to have something shelf-stable for December markets, but the real play is pivoting those 200 jars into sprouting kits that can get fresh food into people’s hands year-round.

It’s not the candied jalapeños I’d planned on, but it’s actually more aligned with the mission. Plus, it solves real problems for people who think they can’t garden and for me when it comes to talking to those folks.

Sometimes the best pivots are the ones that feel like they were always meant to happen - you just needed a door to close before you could see the window was open the whole time.

Regrettably, my toddler has not gotten the memo about this. We are 10 days deep into a hellscape of not-enough-sleep, which tends to turn me into - to put it mildly - a raging bitch.

I'm an early girlie, but anything before 5:00am has me riding the struggle bus for the remainder of the day.

And today, I was shooting content at Kindred, so I had to get my shit together. Also, to get the fuck out of my house as soon as possible so there weren't any victims in my wake. I grabbed an outfit that fit my mood, added appropriately dark lipstick, and decided in my pissy state that I wasn't coming back to the house until I had to that afternoon.

The shot list for the day still needed some work, so I popped into Bleu Door Bakery. Whenever I do a market at Kindred with Hearth & Hollow, I always stop by for a sticky bun and coffee; but this morning, they had something even better waiting there for me.

Zucchini bread.

My heart warmed at the sight - my great-grandma used to make zucchini bread all the time. I took my treat and curled up in the corner of the mostly-empty cafe, remembering sitting on the couch this morning looking up the trees that used to be in her front yard - pacific madrone.

Before long, it was time to get to my shoot, and I walked up the street to Kindred. Our local refillery always smells so good, and today was a chance to really get to know the products and take photos for sharing later.

And then I saw that third little wink from my great-grandma: labels made with a typewriter that reminded me of her recipe cards.

I wasn’t always a “signs” person, but I wasn’t always paying attention before either. This was the reminder I needed that I was on the right path today.

By this point, things were looking up, and it was time for a call with a mutual friend to hear about his experience with a board I was applying to. Turns out we are both huge fucking nerds when it comes to food policy and ecosystems, which was poignant since I was walking through our local grocery chain, New Seasons, while we chatted. He's the first person I've talked to who had a working knowledge of so many of these farm-related issues that are directly impacting every single one of us.

This has fully transitioned into a hot girl walk now, and I am feeling myself when a woman opens the doors and sweeps me into her chocolate cafe, where I spent time going through notes, journaling, and half listening to the Buffy episode she's got playing in the background.

Somewhere between the coffee and conversation, the rhythm of it all started to smooth out the edges I’d started the day with. I found myself in flow, breathing easier, remembering what happens when I leave the house and participate in my community.

I wish more people understood how easy it is to romance your life when you skip the big box store. Today cost me less than $30 for a fabulous pastry, tacos, a truffle, two coffees, and tips. It bought me a day of small connections, shared spaces, people doing what they love and doing it well.

Buy local isn't a platitude. Buy local is a battle cry.

There’s nowhere we have more control than where we spend our money, because under capitalism, that’s worth at least as much as a vote. Every time we choose convenience, we’re trading a little bit of our own capacity - outsourcing what we’re capable of to save ten minutes and a trip across town.

But the truth is, the middlemen aren’t just taking our money. They’re taking the relationships, the rituals, the feeling of belonging to a place because of how we show up there. They’re stealing the chance for moments like this where these tiny exchanges that can seem insignificant at face value become the point, the fabric that connects us to each other.

Which is probably why that slice of zucchini bread stopped me in my tracks. It was a reminder that some things don’t need reinventing.

My great-grandma wouldn't have called it “sustainable,” but she was a Depression baby. She knew. Every loaf of zucchini bread, every jar of green beans lined on the counter - I’m just picking up where she left off.

I’ve been in the backyard, listening to podcasts, running experiments, and growing approximately one metric fuckton of tomatoes.

Beginning this week, you’ll be hearing from me slightly more often - I’m shooting towards a monthly cadence to share more of what’s going on at Hearth & Hollow and in the wider community regarding food security, local resiliency initiatives, and looping you in on the national conversation where it’s relevant re: big ag and how it impacts our health.

Upcoming markets

I’ll be at the Kindred Flea Market on September 27th from 10-4. Stop by, celebrate Kindred’s 5 year anniversary, and pick yourself up a plant or an herb bundle. And please, share it far and wide with your friends! These small markets matter so much to building local resiliency.

What’s growing

I’ve got a variety of fall starts in the greenhouse right now, and they are looking pretty happy!
​
We’ll have:

• Broccoli

• Bibb lettuce

• Bok Choi

• Spinach

• Curly Kale

• Leeks

• Peas

• Turnips

• Celery

• Lots of herbs, but they aren’t ready yet.

Thanks to an overabundance of them out back, I’m also prepping strawberries and raspberries that will be available for porch or market pickup this weekend. These are an unconfirmed variety, but they are extremely productive, mostly thornless, and I think are Willamette.

Thornless blackberry will be available soon, so put a pin in that for later if it’s been on your list!

What I’m listening to

If you’re not familiar with Eliot Coleman, you should be. He’s one of the OGs from the 1960’s who led the organic movement, fought the USDA, and he’s still alive and kickin’ today. (Not to mention still going to bat with the USDA over their bullshit.)

He was recently on The Market Gardener Podcast with Jean-Martin Fortier, and the episode is an unexpectedly rich history lesson that takes us right to this critical moment for small farms.

What I’m making

I don’t know about you, but my greenhouse is still rich with tomatoes, and a few too many cherry tomatoes if I’m being honest.

This tomato jam is canning approved, super easy, and turned out very nicely.

Two notes from me - ​
​
1. It was initially a little bit too sweet, so I ended up adding some additional vinegar.

2. I didn’t bother cutting the tomatoes the way she recommended, because my tomatoes were all fairly small. That said, definitely take the time to strain out the extra liquid. I pressed mine into a colander which worked well, but I should’ve gotten out a little bit more to decrease cooking time.

What’s coming

Hearth & Hollow was born out of the ashes of the inauguration, fueled by wanting to create a path forward for my son’s blacksmithing interest and to ensure I’m doing what I can to support local food resiliency.

Since May, I’ve been selling plants at markets, hosting porch pickups, and meeting so many new people. I’ve grown hundreds of plants, thousands of tomatoes (oops), and learned a ton along the way.

The project has been humming along all year, and things are about to get very exciting a big way: I’m offering a quarterly plant CSA in 2026!

It’s just like a regular CSA, except instead of food, you get vegetable and herb starts.

You can either choose your own plants, or I can put together a selection for you. Plants will be ready for pickup beginning in February, but you can pick them up anytime between Feb 15-April 15.

Want to become a founding Hearth & Hollow CSA member?

• $50/quarter - 9 plants a quarter - click here to become a member.​

• $75/quarter - 18 plants a quarter - click here to become a member.​

There are only 20 spaces available for the CSA at this time, but I’m looking to get another greenhouse and expand by the next quarter.

Final Thoughts

It’s been a wild year on so many levels, and I’m grateful for folks like you who are committed to staying grounded and connected, too. Thank you so much for being here.

Talk soon,

Dusti

Hearth & Hollow was born out of the ashes of the inauguration, fueled by wanting to create a path forward for my son's blacksmithing interest and to ensure I'm doing what I can to support local food resiliency.

Since May, I've been selling plants at markets, hosting porch pickups, and meeting so many new people. I've grown hundreds of plants, thousands of tomatoes (oops), and learned a ton along the way.

The project has been humming along all year, and things are about to get very exciting in two big ways:

1. My sister and I are going to be making and selling cowboy candy (candied jalapenos) at markets through the cold months.

2. I'm offering a quarterly plant CSA in 2026. It's just like a regular CSA, except you get plants!

Hearth & Hollow is ready for the next step. To do it right, I need cash up front for permits, a second covered area, and supplies that keep quality high when the weather turns.

If you have been cheering this on, this is the moment to help. Buy a seat, grab the course, hire me, pre-order cowboy candy, or claim a CSA share. Your dollars become the structure we grow from.

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Attend my Quarterly Planning Workshop on Sept. 19th at 9:00am PST - $27 - My signature workshop has gotten a full revamp, and the focus has changed from being entirely business focused to getting your most important work done. It may sound like a slight shift, but I can't overstate what it's done to revitalize the content.

I want you to bring your life's work. The work that can no longer wait. The project that occupies your thoughts while you're plodding through something you have to do.

Snag your seat here.

Referral Worthy - $197, payment plan available - Now available self-paced and evergreen, I'm thrilled to be able to offer this to you at the bets price it's ever been. This course is designed to be repeated as often as needed, and I'd recommend it twice a year to make sure you're staying on track.

Get Referral Worthy here.

Done for you projects - If you go visit the reinvention co site, you'll notice the focus there has changed a lot. Mostly, it's a way to hire me to handle both strategy + implementation. Since mid-2023, I've been writing copy, building websites, creating AI copybots, and more for small businesses. You can hire me to handle those things for you, too, and you'll be surprised and delighted how fast + affordable it is. I'll be continuing to do projects for the folks I adore working with.

Local to PDX/Vancouver Only

Pre-purchase cowboy candy for porch pickup in Vancouver, WA or Woodland, WA - $12 - If you haven't tried candied jalapenos yet, allow me to introduce your new favorite spicy-sweet charcuterie board addition, condiment, burrito topping, and more.

A 16-oz jar is $12, but if you already know you love it, you can buy 4 and get your 5th jar free. We expect these to be available the first weekend of December. (Stocking stuffers, anyone?)

Plant CSA - $50/quarter - 9 plants a quarter OR $75/quarter - 18 plants a quarter

Become one of my founding CSA members! Plants will be ready for pickup beginning in February.

Thank you for being part of this. Whether you show up online, stop by a market, or send this to a friend who would love a jar of sweet heat, it matters. Hearth & Hollow is about growing something useful and beautiful close to home, and you are welcome here.

Even if it’s wet. Even if it’s hot. (Admittedly, I’ll skip it if it’s especially windy.)

I’ve walked this loop so many times now, I don’t even think about it. Sometimes I’ll put on a podcast, or have Chani in my ear, but more and more lately, I just prefer the quiet.

That didn’t used to be the case.

I didn’t have a Walkman or an iPod growing up, so I’d sing to myself everywhere I went. I didn’t drive, and my mom worked nights, so I was always moving.

And today, heading toward the woods, it hit me - that was me regulating.

The same patterns and the same songs, walking the same places on repeat.

Now, I don’t need the soundtrack. I don’t need anything to hold me together while I move step-by-step along the path under the tree canopy with leaves crunching under my feet.

I didn’t realize how different that was until I noticed how quiet everything had gotten inside of me.

*

Sitting at my desk freshly back from Costa Rica, I'm sitting with the downloads Nina and I came back with.

And the most important one, one we shared, was the least expected - that the priority is getting our kids launched well.

If you’ve been here a while, you know how long I’ve wrestled with the intersection of motherhood, identity, and ambition. When I had Emerson, it brought it all right back to the forefront. And while I’d love to tell you I handled it better this time around, that’d be a bold-faced lie.

What I did have going for me was experience - the familiarity of postpartum depression and, critically, access to resources. I had enough childcare to not completely lose my mind.

But like clockwork, Emerson turned two, the skies began to clear, and the things I’d been so fixated on started to feel less urgent. Considering I’d spent months pressuring my husband to sell the house and move overseas, that season finally releasing its grip on my psyche felt like a necessary exhale.

(Not that I’ve let go of the overseas dream - don’t get it twisted.)

But walking through the woods this morning, I heard it so clearly: "I’m ready for my career to take a back seat."

I’ve always identified so strongly with what I do and what I put out into the world, and while I have no plans to stop creating or sharing what I'm doing, it feels like continuing on that path would be missing the plot.

It's funny how consistently good travel is for my brain. Just getting away from my regular routines and being able to focus on staying present and just whatever's happening that day. Traveling is usually my best writing time, but instead, I found myself quiet. Still. Listening more deeply to the people around me, because it felt like there was something I wasn’t supposed to miss.

The only goal that I set myself during this trip was to stretch and do some yoga every day, which I did. And for the first time in the longer than I care to admit, I can finally touch my toes reliably again. But that daily intentional practice of going out to the deck and stretching and doing yoga with Nina (and walking through the jungle?!) and talking through what we've both been dreaming about just always unlocks whatever's supposed to come next.

And that's looking like a lot of completion and closing out for me which feels really good. One thing I was reminded of during this trip was how much I really love what I do when I'm granted autonomy, but frankly, that's something that should be a given. Let me do my job or why am I even here?

The older I get, the more that I realize that if I try to fight how I'm wired, I just get pissy and resentful. So much of what I'm feeling lately feels cyclical. I'm getting old enough to see my own patterns, and lately it's been all about projects - letting myself make something and let it just exist and be imperfect.

This fall, my projects are looking a little different than I anticipated at the beginning of the year. But that's okay.

In some ways, this year has felt so long, and in others, it feels like I blinked, and now it's almost August. But patterns will do their thing and they'll keep revealing themselves on repeat. So my next little series of projects probably won't surprise anyone. But I hope they’re useful. Or at the very least, good for helping you hit pause, reset, and go - the same way they are for me.

Now - let's talk about the projects.

The Common Wealth Summit

I'm thrilled to finally share a project I've been helping with behind the scenes - a summit that's a whole lot more than a freebie grab.

Back when I'd first launched Reinvent(ed), it was because I'd wanted to create a stage for my friends at scale that focused on giving way more than what was often a thinly veiled pitch.

This is like that, except it was created in an egalitarian style across a group of 9 women. (Betcha didn't see that coming as the punchline, did ya?) I'm so proud of what we've built for you, and I know you're going to get a ridiculous amount of value out of the workshops here.

Treat this like a program you paid for, show up, and consider upgrading if you think you'll need more time to apply everything.

Sign up here

Referral Worthy Season 2

It’s here. Finally.

This season, you’ll still hear me talk shop - especially about the state of online marketing - but a lot of it is about what really drives this work: the relationships we build, how we build them, and why they matter.

​Start with the season opener - I’m joined by Veronica Yanhs, and we’re not holding back.

​

Hearth & Hollow

Fall is just around the corner, which means it's time to start your next round of seeds?

No room for your winter garden yet? I’ve got you.

Hearth & Hollow is now taking pre-orders for fall veggie starts. Think of it like a CSA for plants.

​More info here!​

Last but not least, I’ve made the call not to host Reinvent(ed) this year.

That said, it's looking like I'll be traveling for the holidays, and wherever I land, trust I'll be hosting a gathering for us.

​

Last Thoughts

I left Costa Rica with a whole lot of clarity, love, and self-respect.

There are still a few things that need wrapping up, loops that need closing, but the self-imposed urgency has disappeared.

Now, it's just figuring out how to navigate this next season without abandoning myself in the process. No big deal, right?

Thanks for listening. Be back with a cute lil ebook soon.

(For real, ask me about Morocco some time.)

A week ago, I was on a shuttle heading to Hood River to meet a stranger from the internet - a woman I agreed to spend two weeks with overseas, because two weeks earlier, I saw a Facebook post from someone looking for strategic marketing support in exchange for an all-expenses-paid trip to Costa Rica.

So we're clear, this is not even close to the weirdest, most-questionably-safe-at-first-glance thing I’ve ever done.

The catch? She needed to book the tickets the same day.

My first thought? “This was made for me.”

My question for her? "Can I bring my bestie?"

And now, ya girl is sitting at the airport getting ready to get a fresh passport stamp.

I've been thinking a lot about luck lately.

My husband, Jon, has a lucky super power - the man will ALWAYS win a raffle. A few months back, we learned that IKEA free hosts events, including a bingo night where you can win items from the clearance area. We packed a margarita to go, and the next thing we knew, we were taking home $200 worth of stuff we won. (Plus the $400 we spent on things we actually needed, but hey, take your wins where you can get them.)

This is not an isolated occurrence either. One time, we got to watch a frenemy announce his name one stage with one of the big prizes at said frenemy's gala.

Funny anecdotes aside, my brand of luck has more to do with meeting the exact right person at the exact right time - and above all, being willing to say yes.

Because luck isn’t passive. It’s something you engage with.

The funny thing is, when I finally met the woman behind the Costa Rica trip in person, we had a fantastic mutual connection - one of my speakers at Reinvent(ed) last December.

It’s easy to look at stuff like this and think it’s magic. But most of the time, it’s just presence. You’ve got to be available to your own life. You’ve got to be willing to trust yourself even if you don’t have the whole picture.

I had a moment the night after I said yes where I texted my bestie like, “Is this totally nuts?” She said no. And now she’s coming too. (This is why she’s the bestie.)

I got another one of those little nudges recently at a Tash Sultana show with my bonus sister. Picture reggae Brandi Carlile and exactly as many lesbians as that implies. Mid-set, I just got a gut-punch of a message: love everyone a little more.

Ten minutes later, some guy walks by wearing a hat that says: Love Everyone. The universe is not always subtle.

So yeah, call it luck. Maybe it’s divine timing. Maybe it’s just being the kind of person who knows when to shoot their shot. But I’ll tell you this much - openness isn’t a vibe. It’s a way of doing life. One where you don’t wait for permission. One where you trust yourself enough to say yes, even when it doesn’t make perfect sense yet.

Next time something shows up that feels a little wild but a little meant for you?

SHOOT YOUR SHOT!

Say yes first. Figure it out later.

Your own Costa Rica moment might be waiting.

I hope there’s some truth here that makes it easier for you to take the right next step - whatever that looks like for you.

So, in case no one's told you...

If you're a small business owner ignoring the war on the middle and lower class right now, and you think you're going to be able to offer coaching or any other non-essential service and make money the way you used to, you're living a fantasy.

The landscape has changed. The economy is brutal. People are tired, scared, cautious. They're not impulse-buying $2000 magic bullets anymore. They're thinking hard about where every dollar goes, and if your offer doesn’t solve a real problem, build trust, or create actual value, it's not getting through. Period.

Look, not even the big dogs are hauling it in right now. I've been watching launches tank since the beginning of 2023 - and I mean tank hard. We’re talking full teams, full budgets, optimized funnels, solid offers, loyal audiences - and still, numbers that would’ve been unthinkable a few years ago.

And here’s the thing about people like me who are running these huge launches for these huge personalities with huge audiences: we talk.

We let each other know when shit’s going sideways, because it’s never just one campaign. It’s the market. It’s the shift. And we’ve been doing this long enough to know we’re not the problem. This isn’t a lack of effort. This is a shift in what people need, what they see through, and what they refuse to tolerate anymore.

So what now? What do you do?

Well, that depends.

If what you’re doing is just “good enough,” if it’s the thing that sounded smart but never quite felt right - this is your sign to let it go. Not out of shame, but out of respect for yourself and the time you’ve already put in.

But if this thing really is your work - and not just a pipe dream of passive income some rich white lady sold you in a Facebook group - if it is actually your purpose, your contribution, the thing you can’t not do - then you need to stop playing.

You build something people actually need. You drop the fake vulnerability, the vibe posting, the Canva quotes, and actually become the person who’s worth hiring, worth referring, worth remembering.

Because if you aren’t Referral Worthy, you’re forgettable.

If you’re not delivering the best experience your client has had all year, why would they come back? Why would they tell their friends? There is no shortcut here.

These days, branding is cheap. Content is everywhere. If you want to stand out, your work has to speak for itself - and the way you show up has to speak even louder.

You want to grow something that lasts? Build deeper relationships. Get off the hamster wheel of hot takes and focus on consistency, delivery, and care. That’s what earns loyalty. That’s what creates staying power. That’s what people talk about.

And if you're not sure you're on the right path anymore? Great! We stan a self aware queen! That’s not quitting. That’s clarity.

For me, that clarity is Hearth & Hollow.

When I think about the change I care about making in the world, it's sure as hell not helping build performative online businesses or building launch calendars or anything else that's perpetuating the worst of capitalism. I'm not interested in helping sell shit people don't need.

So I went back to my roots and started growing food. Something that can feed people, literally and metaphorically. I'm turning my backyard into a microfarm, not because it was easy or cute or profitable overnight, but because it was the only

thing that made sense anymore.

It’s the thing that might actually help change the world in my own small way.

It’s not easy. But it’s real. And that’s what I want for you, too. Whatever it looks like. Whether you stay the course or build something entirely new - just make sure it matters.

Not to the algorithm. To you. To the people you serve. To the future you're trying to help shape.

If you’ve got something like that? Now is the time to go all in. If you don’t? Now is the time to find it.

Because we need fewer noise-makers and more people doing work that matters.

And if that’s you?

Then act like it.

Lately, I’ve been quieter than usual online. Not because I’m pulling back from the work - if anything, I’m deeper in it than ever - but because I noticed myself slipping into a pattern I didn’t like: scrolling more than creating. Consuming more than contributing. Looking for clarity in places I know won’t give it to me.

So I deleted the apps and forced myself to do a much-needed hard reset.

I’ve been busy in the garden, trying to pay attention to what actually feels good (versus just running the same old patterns), and rethinking more than a few long-held perspectives on things that really fucking matter.

And more than anything, I’ve been showing up for my people.

A dear friend of mine needed real support recently. I’m not going to tell their story, because it’s not mine to share. But I will tell you this: when someone you care about is in it, and you have the capacity to show up? You do it. You drop the calendar and pick up the phone. You rearrange things. You sit in it with them.

That’s what I mean when we talk about real community.

One of the endlessly irritating things about people who say they want “community” is their refusal to be even mildly inconvenienced by it.

Because the truth is, when someone really needs help? They’re probably not going to show up as their easiest, most pleasant self. It’s messy. It’s emotional. It’s rarely on schedule.

Community is not convenient.

It’s showing up to the best of your ability anyway. And that’s going to look different in every season.

Example: If you need a late-night ride, I’m probably not your girl. (I don’t drive, and I’ve got a toddler who goes to bed at 7.)

But if you need to move in a pinch during daylight hours? I’ll show up with snacks, a joint, and jokes.

Because here’s the thing about real community: when you show up for your people, they show up for you.

I’ve been supporting my people. I’ve been head down, reworking systems, launching a whole new venture (again lolz), and trying to remember to ask for help when I need it.

And what’s wild is that when I needed support?

It showed up for me, too.

This week, I dropped into Veronica Yanhs’ office hours because I was overwhelmed. I’d been spinning out trying to figure out inventory for Hearth & Hollow—my tiny microfarm that’s somehow real enough now to need actual systems. I’d gone down a rabbit hole of nursery management software and spreadsheet hell, none of which made sense for how I think or work.

Veronica gently reminded me: I don’t need to force myself into a structure that was never meant for me.

That one conversation saved me hours of trying to contort myself into an “industry standard,” and brought me back to what I actually needed: something simple, supportive, and mine.

(And if you’re trying to do literally anything with more ease and pleasure in your business, go grab her Toolkit. She’s my COO for a reason.)

Here’s the bigger point: Good business isn’t built on perfect planning or big launches or going viral on demand. It’s built in the relationships you’ve invested in.

The people who remind you of who you are when you forget. Who send referrals because they know your work is gold. Who walk beside you when you’re at a crossroads, personal or professional.

People like Eunice Brownlee, who’s about to launch Storyteller Summer Camp - a half-day retreat on the Oregon Coast for folks who are ready to reconnect with their voice and share their story in a way that actually feels good. (It’s happening in Cannon Beach this summer. If you’re local, keep an eye out.)

People like Mary Williams, the soulful strategy whisperer you might recognize as the emcee from Reinvent(ed). If you’ve been craving more clarity and connection in your week, her weekly tarot readings are a brilliant place to start.

These aren’t just cool people - they’re the people I trust.

People who remind me, over and over, that business can be a site of connection - not just commerce. That leadership can be shared. That systems can support us, not just squeeze us.

And that’s why I’m doubling down on client experience, referrals, and regenerative systems of care - not trying to outpost the algorithm.

If you’re ready to reconnect with the part of you that knows how to do this work in a way that actually feels good?

Start with the people. Always.

Chani says I can blame my midheaven in Gemini. But also… maybe I don’t need to.

Because I’m finally starting to accept that this is simply how I move through the world. Not as a distraction. Not to escape (usually). But because this is how I engage.

Business, for me, has never just been about income. It’s always been about the people, participation, and presence. About getting close to what matters and trying, in my own way, to help shape it.

And my side projects? They’re not detours. They’re how the path and people keep revealing themselves.

I just got my lil’ plant start venture accepted to its first monthly market in a fancy pocket of Portland, and honestly, I'm ridic excited about it.

It’s the first time I’ve had to consider things like how I’m going to transport product or where to find a folding table that won’t collapse under a breeze. I’m troubleshooting shade cloths and tote bins, texting friends to ask who has a collapsible cart or a Square reader or a popup tent they aren't using this season. I’m in Facebook groups posting slightly unhinged asks like, “Give me a ride to the market, and I’ll sell your goodies alongside my seedlings.”

And it’s working.

Because people want to connect.

They just need the space—and the invitation.

And that, I’m realizing, is part of the point.

This isn’t just a side project. This is a different kind of business - one that doesn’t just live online.

It’s one that gets me out from behind the screen and into the community, one that lets me show up without filters or funnels or Facebook.

It’s thrilling. And it’s a place I haven’t spent any time since my long-gone days of running coffee shops.

Which, of course, means it also kicks up all the old stuff.

The voice that whispers: “Oh, she’s doing another thing now?”

“She just launched this other idea…”

“Isn’t that confusing for people?”

And sure, I could argue with it.

But I’m getting better at letting it pass over me, watching the wave crest, and waiting to act once it subsides.

Because this pattern? This is who I am.

I am someone who sees possibility everywhere.

I’m always building something because it helps me feel connected to the people and ideas I care about, because there’s always something new calling.

For years, I’ve fought that part of me, attempting to shrink myself into coherence.

But lately, I’m choosing a different approach.

I’m noticing the pattern, and instead of resisting it, I’m following the thread and letting it pull me where it wants to.

It’s not much different than how I’m working with the land: trying to listen to what it wants, planting what I can when I can, harvesting what grows.

That’s what Hearth & Hollow is becoming - a living, breathing rhythm I’m learning how to follow.

Part creative project, part micro-farm, part hands-in-the-dirt experiment in building something local and relational and real. And it doesn’t need to be marketed yet. It just needs to be tended.

Because gardening is a radical act.

Not just because it pushes back against extractive systems, but because it reminds us that we need each other to survive.

Not as followers. Not as buyers. As neighbors.

The post I made in that Facebook group this morning?

This is the kind of community building that makes us more resilient in the face of everything. We have to be clear and honest about asking for what we need and figuring out what it is that we have to give in return. I'm not talking about bartering, although we're going to see a lot more of that here in the near future.

When we create connections by actively relying on each other, that's something that flies in the face of an individualistic society.

Audre Lorde wrote, “For women, the need and desire to nurture each other is not pathological but redemptive.”

That line lives in my bones right now.

Because nurturing is what I’m doing.

Through business.

Through parenting.

Through planting.

So when I’m at that market next month, I’ll be showing up as all of me - complete with red boots, blue hair, cowboy hat, and lipstick.

Not as someone doing too much or flitting from one thing to the next - but as someone who is perhaps beginning to accept that some things are meant to evolve and change, and nothing more so than myself.

It feels so, so weird to talk about marketing right now.

I don’t want to add to the noise you’re already being pummeled with, but I also don’t want you to stop talking about the thing that’s paying your bills.

So here’s the tl;dr marketing advice for the day: Call the person you’ve been thinking about. Make the ask.

Because truly, there is no secret beyond doing good work, showing up consistently, and making sure people remember you.

If that’s what you needed today, I’ll catch you next week—where I’ll be sending some free templates I’ve been working on to make your life easier when it comes to running a trust-driven business.

But let’s be honest—no one I know is thinking about marketing right now.

Everyone I talk to seems to be oscillating wildly between two versions of what they want to do with themselves right now.

Are we having the same daydream?

In daydream number one, we fuck off to Europe.

I’m sitting at a café in Florence, the sun warming the back of my neck with a strong espresso in my hand. My laptop is open, but I’m barely looking at it. Instead, I’m watching the world move around me—conversations in a language I barely understand, people walking with a kind of ease I can’t seem to find in my own life. No one knows me. No one needs anything from me.

It’s intoxicating.

In daydream number two, we turn in to farmers.

In another version of the dream, I don’t run. I stay.

I sink my hands into the soil of this place, learning its rhythms, tending to what’s already here instead of chasing something new. The foothills of the Pacific Northwest aren’t just a backdrop; they are home. The trees that have stood longer than I’ve been alive remind me that staying is its own kind of rebellion.

My mornings are the same way they are now, waking up early, making coffee, and checking in— but not on Slack, not in my inbox, but with the people around me.

I know my neighbors. I know who needs extra hands on a project and who’s bringing eggs to trade at the market this week and who needs me to bring more tomato starts over. I know that real security isn’t in some far-off escape plan, but in the relationships we build right here, in the web of care we create for each other.

No metrics. No content calendars. No waiting for someone else to do what needs to be done. Just the quiet, necessary work of belonging—to a place, to a people, to a future we make real by choosing to stay and build it.

But staying doesn’t mean standing still.

It doesn’t mean ignoring the weight of it all or pretending things are fine when they’re not. It doesn’t mean surrendering to burnout, or giving up on the wild, defiant hope that things could be different.

It means deciding that here—this place, this work, these people—is worth investing in. That even when everything in me wants to run, I choose to plant myself deeper instead.

What does it mean to move forward when everything feels like it’s on fire?

That’s the question I’ve been circling around.

Because holy shit have I been circling. Some days I’m neck-deep in strategic planning, pulling off big wins for clients. My fingers fly over my keyboard, my coffee goes cold beside me, and the air in my office is thick with the scent of whiteboard markers and half-finished thoughts.

Other days, I’m fighting the urge to run as fast as I can towards anything that isn’t this. I feel overwhelmed, like things just refuse to work no matter how much momentum I’ve started with, and I end up with my back pressed to the wall again. My thoughts spiral, my body buzzes with that too-familiar, restless energy—like I’m trying to hold onto a moving train but also looking for the nearest exit.

And then there are the days where I spiral so hard on what’s not working that I nearly forget what is.

Like the fact that every Thursday, I’m out and about in Portland—co-working in spaces that hum with quiet focus, volunteering in places where hands meet hands in shared effort, catching up with friends over espresso cocktails and the kind of conversations that crack you open, dancing until my legs shake and my body feels like mine again.

Because I made a promise to myself to be here.

For however long I’m in Portland, I refuse to just exist in it. I am going to live in this place, be part of it, commit to it—not just in some vague, theoretical way, but in ways that make me known to my city and the people in it.

Last Thursday, I was standing in line at Coffeehouse 5, notebook in hand, already jotting down five new ideas before I even got my damn latte. My friend couldn’t meet me—her baby was sick—so I wandered instead, letting the city pull me where it wanted. I grabbed lunch at Fireside, sat at the bar with a glass of wine, let myself just be for a moment.

And then—my first dance class in years.

We moved in the mirror-lit room, sweat trickling down my spine, music vibrating through my ribs, until the only thing left in my head was this. This body. This moment. This life I am building here, in real time, in the place I have chosen to stay.

And the next morning, I was back in the dirt.

I set up my 20x10 greenhouse with my 13-year-old (how do I have a 13-year-old?), swapping seeds with anyone who had extras, trading them for the starts I’ve been growing under LED lights in my living room, rotating them out every two weeks like a woman possessed.

I might have also signed up for a market stall at a little local market outside a community library sale called Books and Blooms to sell my extra starts at, because clearly, I am losing it.

But honestly? Maybe this is what forward movement looks like.

Not an escape. Not a grand, sweeping change. Just this: small, deliberate choices to root in, to belong, to build something real.

Because I’m not interested in freezing.

Not when the world is moving like this.

Not when every nonprofit leader I talk to is paralyzed by the sheer volume of losses and choices they’re staring down.

Not when we all have too much to lose to sit back and wait for someone else to fix it.

We have to keep going. We have to build community in ways that make sense to us. We have to keep making the ask, making the call, making the connections, making something.

Even if it’s just a half-baked plan for a greenhouse and too many tomato starts.

Even if it’s just a newsletter, sent out in the middle of the chaos, reminding you that you’re not alone in it.

So if you’re feeling stuck, if you’re feeling angry, if you’re feeling like what the fuck even matters right now?—I see you. And I get it.

But let’s not freeze.

Let’s find ways to move.

And if you need someone to help you figure out what that looks like for your business, your marketing, your messaging—I’m here.

Now, tell me: What’s keeping you moving right now?

Half of my day was spent with my friend Veronica, deep in conversation about chicken coops, gardening, and what the hell we do when the world as we know it doesn’t hold anymore. The other half? Spent inside, in front of my laptop, working on my small business as if everything were normal.

I’m a marketer. There’s not exactly a line item for my skill set in the apocalypse. But I studied environmental economics, sustainability, and permaculture in college, and I’ve been a casual practitioner of those things ever since. I’ve planted gardens. I’ve made my own cleaning supplies. I’ve lived the low-cost self-sufficiency we now see glamorized on Instagram.

But if I’m being honest? I’ve let some of it go.

And frankly, some of that is fine. I was raised on Rocko’s Modern Life propaganda about recycling, only to grow up and realize most recycling is mostly a scam. (At least I can still compost in good conscience.)

Oh, and I had another baby. And nothing—nothing—will make you appreciate convenience like having a newborn.

The first time I had kids, I was poor. I made do with cloth diapers and SNAP benefits. I made my own laundry detergent, made everything from scratch, and scrimped and saved so we could have a summer CSA share and support a local farm.

But the thing is, I let go of those things because, for the first time, I could. Because I’d built a life where my time was finally worth more than the extra effort. And for a while, I let myself believe that was enough. That I’d made it out. That I’d done what I set out to do.

But the world has a way of reminding you that self-sufficiency isn’t the same as security.

I should feel more prepared for what’s coming. I know how to survive on scraps. I know how to navigate broken systems. I know how to stretch, how to plan, how to make do. But the rules are changing faster than any of us can keep up with.

The ground isn’t just shifting—it’s eroding. And I don’t know that anything I learned growing up actually readied me for this.

Because back then, there was at least the illusion of a safety net. It was threadbare and full of holes, but it was there. Now? Now, we’re watching the last frayed strings snap under the weight of a government that will let people starve and call it freedom.

And the hardest part? Watching my kids feel it, too.

I stood in the kitchen the other night, looking at my son—almost 13 now, his shoulders suddenly as wide as mine—and realizing that I can’t keep this from touching him anymore. That weight is pressing into him in ways I wish I could stop.

When I was not much younger than him, I’d trail behind my great-grandpa as he through the rows of raspberries and green beans, smelling like Old Spice before its millennial rebrand. My great-grandma’s soft hands would brush against mine as she pulled me into a hug.

They lived out in Merlin, Oregon, outside of Grants Pass. They’d lived through the Depression, and it showed in all the little ways it does for those who survive hard times.

You always finished your plate (and if you couldn’t, Grandma would come by and help). You saved everything—evidenced by the many sheds around the property, filled to the brim with canning jars, tools, and anything they feared might come in handy one day.

And they always had a garden. Well, they called it a garden, but looking back, it was a small-scale farm.

Every summer, the whole extended family would come out to can green beans.

If you haven’t had real green beans—as in, the ones you pick and can yourself—you don’t actually know if you like them. I was the oldest of the great-grandkids, leading the others in snapping them to the right size and picking them off the lower branches. The moms and aunties gathered in the kitchen around a stove too small for how many of us were packed into that double-wide with the worn shag green carpet that was all the rage in the '70s.

My great-grandpa had a huge shop he worked in until his memory started to fail him.

They built their lives in a way that kept them fed, that kept them safe. It wasn’t easy, but it was theirs. And now, I find myself looking at the land I have, knowing I have the same responsibility to steward it—not just for me, but for the people around me.

So I do what I can.

I stand beside my raised beds, covering them with plant blankets, willing the little seeds underneath to germinate faster. I tell myself that if I can get them growing now, I’ll have more to share with my neighbors later in the season.

I focus on the responsibility of tending to this patch of earth, even though I don’t know how much longer I’ll be here, even though I don’t know if this is where I belong. But does that even matter anymore?

I stay busy because stillness makes my brain spin in ways I can’t afford. I dig. I plant. I propagate. I press my hands into the dirt and try to convince myself it’s enough to counter the weight pressing against my chest.

I know the truth: I can’t outwork this. I can’t dig my way out of what’s coming.

But I can plant.
I can build.
I can fight.

And I will.

She was a bartender. Nights, weekends. By the time she got home, the forms were crumpled at the bottom of my backpack, and the decision was already made: forge the signature or miss out.

I was the eldest daughter, so I handled the rest, too.

Getting myself to choir practice before the sun came up. Cooking dinner for my siblings—and the extra latchkey kids who always seemed to find their way to our kitchen. Calling strangers for rides because no one else was going to get us there.

I learned early: if it needed doing, I did it. Not because I wanted to. Because I had to.

And when you grow up like that—smart, capable, and with no safety net—you start to believe that hard work is the only way out. That if you just grind hard enough, you can make it.

And yeah, I worked my ass off. I built a life I’m proud of. I broke the cycle. Eventually.

But what nobody tells you is that even when you do all of that, the feeling of being on your own never really goes away.

It’s why I struggled with codependency for so long. But it’s also why I believe so deeply in building strong, supportive communities. Because no one should have to do it alone. Not when there are people who genuinely want to help. Not when we could all be so much stronger together.

I don’t need to tell you the world’s a mess right now.

If you’ve been paying attention—Project 2025 fallout, basic rights under siege, the cost of existing climbing every day—you already know. It’s overwhelming. Infuriating. And if you’re like me, you’ve probably been cycling through rage, exhaustion, and that stubborn refusal to let the bastards win.

Here’s where I’ve landed:

We need money.
We need power.
And we need to take care of our own.

Because while the billionaires and politicians at the top are playing their games, the rest of us are out here trying to build something real—something that can actually sustain our families, our communities, and our movements.

I get the left’s aversion to capitalism. Believe me, same. But refusing to engage with the system we live in doesn’t change the fact that it’s the one we have to navigate. And if there’s one thing I know how to do, it’s make money and help other people do the same.

Because money?
It funds mutual aid.
It fuels activism.

It buys time, stability, and options.

And right now, we need all of the above.

So here’s what I’m doing—and what you can do, too:

1. Show Up for Your Community

I’ll be volunteering with Feed the Mass, an organization tackling food insecurity through education and community meals. If you’re local, come with me. If not, find a group near you that’s doing work that matters.

I’m also looking into a community land trust to keep folks housed long-term. And I’m planting my biggest garden yet this spring—because if we can’t count on systems to keep everyone fed, we’ll figure out how to do it ourselves.

2. Get Strategic About Your Activism

Righteous anger is fuel, but action moves the needle.

Groups like Indivisible have clear, practical plans for how everyday people can make a real impact. (Because honestly? If it’s not a general strike, I’m not convinced traditional protests are going to move the needle.)

The key is to get hyper-local. What are the needs in your neighborhood? Who’s already doing the work? Go help them.

3. Build & Share Wealth

This doesn’t have to mean chasing some ridiculous idea of “success.” It means using what you have—skills, connections, resources—to create opportunities, hire people, and redistribute power in ways that actually make a difference.

Because we’re not powerless. But we do have to get smarter. Together.

How are you building power in your life and community? Hit reply and tell me. I'd love to know—because selfishly, I need a little hope these days, too.

We’ve got each other. We’ve got the numbers. Now let’s build.