I'm a beginning homesteader. I moved to an acreage near Santa Rosa two years ago and since then I've been steadily working toward living a simpler, more natural lifestyle. I produce some of my own food and cook many things from scratch that most people buy processed. I am slowly working on my skill building. Some of my hard-won skills include: poultry and goat management, dog and cat training, forest and orchard management, making and using alternatives to chemical and processed foods/products, fire building (I make firestarters out of surplus materials), cooking and baking. In addition to these down-home skills (as I like to call them), I have a degree in Middle Eastern Studies from UC Berkeley and several years of experience in the professional world doing research, writing and consultation on that subject. I wrote my thesis on media in the middle east, specifically: bias and censorship in Israel-Palestine.