Hi, I’m Kate. I’m a landscape ecologist, writer, and filmmaker. Over the past months, I’ve started learning how to live in balance with nature, a modern version of returning to the roots. I’m building a kind of urban homestead or apartment homestead on a piece of neglected land that I am restoring to grow our food and a balcony garden. I’m learning to preserve food for winter, forage for food in the wild, and cook from scratch.
I haven’t always appreciated nature. Honestly, I didn’t really start appreciating nature at all until my husband and I moved to California–and adopted a dog. When we started diving, I saw, first-hand, the effects of humans interacting with nature: plastic at the bottom of the ocean, a fishing line and weight hanging from the lip of a fish larger than my husband, and sargassum seaweed taking over where beautiful giant kelp forests used to provide a playground for seals.
My bubble was burst and slowly my world view crumbled. I kept noticing how badly we are treating this beautiful planet we should be stewarding. What gives us the right? I got angry. I got sad. I tried to fill the void with stuff. And then I decided to change something. Well, that something turned out to be everything.
After California, we explored New Zealand, then the Netherlands. At the moment, we are building a life in North-Eastern Germany in a small village near the island of Rügen.
Here, I am working hard to restore an allotment garden that has been empty for almost a decade, neglected for longer. I’m rebuilding the garden house, setting up beds, and growing soil, so we can grow our own food next year. Providing for ourselves, as much as we can, is a first step toward our next big adventure.
I grew up in Germany but it never felt like home. California was my heart home but I couldn’t stay, so I’ve been looking for a place to call home since. We hope to sail the world to see what’s out there, to explore nature, to meet a lot of people of different cultures, but mostly to find a place to settle down, to build a farm, create a homestead, and hopefully, a community.
So, welcome to the journey. I’m so happy to have you here!