ss834

I have been writing an online blog about ecological gardening and permaculture since 2009. After gaining a strong following of my own and gaining some confidence in my ability to attract a crowd, I was inspired to test out a few of the less conventional ways of reaching out to people. The opportunity to make a revenue is attractive to me, because it means I can devote more time to writing, one of my greatest passions, without sacrificing my time spent earning an income.

I have a BS in Natural Resources from Oregon State University and a certificate in Permaculture design from the Cascadia Permaculture Institute (through OSU). I completed my degree online after my son was born, and I have a lot of experience researching credible online programs and learning how to discriminate the good from the bad. That said, education and online learning are among my writing interests, since I regard myself as a lifetime student, whether I am enrolled in a university or not (this is not always necessary, or even the best way to learn). I hope to spend some time on Infobarrel exploring the free courses and learning opportunities that are available now thanks to the internet.

I have professional experience working for a non-profit conservation organization where I developed restoration projects and collaborated in writing grants for EPA's nonpoint source green infrastructure program.

As my background would suggest, I am very interested in environmental issues, natural resources use and economics, and permaculture activism as a way to improve the functional relationship between human communities and the natural world. I adhere to the belief that even densely urbanized areas are part of nature, as they are subject to the same erosive forces and weather patterns as every other part of the planet. That said, urban areas do create some unique challenges both for humans and the environment that we depend on. Without getting too philosophical here, I will just say that you can expect environmental issues to be a prominent feature in many of my lenses.

I'm looking forward to working with the Hubpages community. I do have memberships in similar communities. If you want to find my profile there, or check out my blog, here are the links:

Squidoo username: ss834

Infobarrel username: mcdonasa

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