Grounded in Maine

*Please forgive my echoey audio in this episode! I had cleared out my office to move, and it was - well - echoey.*

Vale Siegrist won a year of Public Relations work from Publicity for Good, who has been sending some pretty great podcast guests my way lately! I was watching their contest, so curious to see who won - and while talking with Vale, she let me know it was her!

Vale started Circular Mom Club after struggling post partum. On...

I've been bugging Elizabeth Bruckner for months to come back on the podcast, because I've been listening to her other podcast guest episodes and feeling like we've been missing out, and I finally wore her down. I'm kidding - she's been wanting to go deep about Kefir with someone, and I've been interested in learning about it, and finding a fermented food I can actually ingest. And boy oh boy, did we ge...

I was so looking forward to talking with Susan Poizner - I've heard so many times that the first thing you should do on a homestead is plant perennial fruits, so I wanted to make sure we/I know the best practices, And Susan's story about learning about fruit tree care is so incredible. Susan planted fruit trees in her city park in an empty space, only to hear from some community people that they didn't want it. She d...

I got an email asking if I'd want to have a conversation with GreenFi Banking very soon after talking with Maya Lily the filmmaker, who recommended knowing that who's holding our money is in alignment with our values, so that was a really easy YES! George Mazzella is the VP of Marketing for GreenFi - he was sought out for the position by Tim, the CEO, who had worked with George before, and knows that he is passionate abou...

I feel like this conversation with Mark Winters was so needed. Things feel so desperate and divided, and in comes Mark with his bubbly positive outlook to neutralize any heaviness. Mark Winters is an bonafide rocket scientist turned full time touring musician, spreading his positivity wherever he goes. He's currently on his Good Vibes Highway Tour of 120 cities and counting.

For Mark, music is his bridge between the analyz...

There were so many great moments that it was hard to narrow them down in this conversation with Stephanie Gross, Founder of Bumby Wool! She built a sustainable fashion brand with merino wool in Canada. Stephanie is a married mom of 2, and is passionate about circular fashion, using what's already existing and her community. 

Bumby Wool started out in 2007 as cloth diaper covers, because the wool wicks moisture away from the ski...

I absolutely loved talking with Rebecca Newburn, the Founder of the Seed Library Network! Past podcast guest and friend Ranya Dube connected us after a workshop that Ranya hosted and Rebecca spoke in. I remember hearing recently that I think it was Israel that destroyed Gaza's national seed library, which got my mind wanting to learn more about seed libraries, and why that mattered so much. I had heard of seed libraries, but I...

I met Lauren Lovejoy last fall in a Women in Regenerative Agriculture group and was so silly excited to learn that she was the creator of the Red Hen app that I already had on my phone. Ren Hen app is a farm finder, so wherever you are, you're able to support small farmers- you can message and set up a meeting and pay for stuff all through the app - it's kind of like a mobile farm stand!

The Red Hen app is still relatively...

If you're following me on Instagram, you may have noticed me sharing posts about Barterloo bartering app - community powered and community building, sharing strengths and caring for each other. I'm talking with the founder, Kelly Dempsey. I learned about her when she was a guest on another New England podcaster, Molly Amatangelo's Local Treads podcast. Barterloo is just a few weeks away from launch, and it's so ...

I loved this conversation with Michelle Heberling, and learned so much about the gut role and how to care for it with fermentation. Michelle shares her very intense story of finding her way to fermenting foods, and she shares many more in her soon to be published book The Guts of Fermentation, along with some of her favorite recipes.

We talked a bit about the Germ Theory and the Bristol Chart, calming our gut with mindfulness, BELLY...

Talor Stewart has a very different way of looking at home design, and I am here for it! Conscious Home Design is Talor's business and the name of his #1 Best Selling book. 

What does a home truly need to provide? There has been research done about what makes people happy as they age; Talor has incorporated both of these studies and more with his Architecture education to offer Conscious Home Design. He offers a workbook and als...

Christa Dhimo is a New England Podcaster who I hadn't had much of a chance to get to know until I talked about my sustainability podcast in our community, and Christa, Founder of Impono - Senior Business Advisor, went full-on nerdy about DIRT. 

Christa hosts a podcast about business questions called Ask Christa, where people will write in whatever business questions they might have - from executive to employee and everything in...

This conversation with Doug Katz went deeper than expected, but it was SO good! Doug is a retired Military Veteran who has used his disability as inspiration to create adaptive items. He just started selling the Nulu adaptive knife last summer - it's inspired by the Inuit ULU, but adjusted to accommodate his and others' disability. 

Talking with Doug, I learned that there are Adaptive Libraries across the country, so that ...

Climate Storyteller barely touches on the work that Maya Lilly has been a part of in the climate change world; she's part of the Emmy Award Winning The Years Project. She's been an activist since she was 15. She's a Producer, Speaker, and Climate Storyteller. She was named to the Grist 50 for revolutionizing Hollywood's approach to Climate Storytelling. She uses storytelling as a force for justice, empathy and r...

I found Jacaranda Hemp Apparel through a podcast guest newsletter and thought that by satisfying some curiosity we can learn more about an available sustainable fabric with so many great qualities! I got my 'I grew up under a rock' questions out of the way before recording to spare you, but there's still plenty to learn.

There are so many things about Jacaranda that impress me, like their entrepreneurial spirit, and t...

I attended Chad Thompson's talk at the SOVA Rise Entrepreneur Summit last October about business planning, I didn't tell him this, but it wasn't a talk that I thought really pertained to me, since I didn't really have a business to market so to speak; something drew me to it- and I'm so glad I listened to that! 

Chad mentioned something about the business plan that I had never heard or even thought about bef...

Let me tell you a little story about my meeting Samantha Erickson... I think she reached out to me (my Instagram name is Grounded in Maine, and she's a Maine business, so I assume that's why), and the idea of used formal dresses was such a great business plan, so I was sold, and invited her to talk about it on the podcast. When I got her podcast guest form, she said "turning grief and pain into purpose," and if ...

Tom Schueneman has lived a fascinating life of traveling and music, and now has been an environmental journalist for several years - literally a member of the Society for Environmental Journalists. This year he started hosting his own podcast, which was called Global Warming is Real - recently rebranded to Earthbound, which is so good. Tom is very thoughtful and really cares about the earth and people, and that comes across very cl...

Julie Colombino-Billingham was working in disaster response 15 years ago, and was in Haiti after the earthquake of 2010. She never went back. She fell in love with the resilience and kindness of the people, and started a business with them called Deux Mains (two hands), making sustainable, fair trade leather bags and accessories - and also school shoes for students that they sell to churches and ministries to distribute. These beau...