Episode 74: Hillarie Maddox

Hobby Farms Presents: Growing Good

Homesteader Hillarie Maddox talks about returning to the land, building community and mental health for farmers.

Hear about Hillarie’s upbringing visiting her family members’ original homesteads in South Dakota and how her life came full circle, back to the land herself on Whidbey Island, in Washington. She talks about how she and her husband are balancing their differing interests in landscaping versus gardening on their property, ultimately arriving at a food forest approach.

Learn about Heavy Nettle Collective, a diverse group of farmers, creatives and healers who are growing food, producing local events and building community together. This group has formed organically and changes in response to the needs of the people coming together — having grown from 5 to 20 — and they are slowly bringing the group into a more formal structure.

While everyone contributes their own strengths to the collective, some of Hillarie’s gifts are facilitating community and wellness. Since launching her wellness experiences through an REI business incubator program, Hillarie has been offering nature immersion, movement and breathwork to reconnect people to themselves and the world around them.

Hillarie offers a thoughtful definition of the concept of community and illustrates how that looks in her own life. Get her best advice for how to actually build the community that so many people talk about wanting.

Hillarie Maddox on Instagram

Hillarie Maddox on Substack

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