tenzicut is a 5th generation Oregonian, who grew up on a small vineyard in Willamette Valley, Oregon.  She learned gardening and viniculture from her father, who went to viniculture school with some of the 'big boys', at other well reknown wineries. From her mother she learned how to can and put up foods. From the time she was born, her family had always kept poultry, rabbits, the occasional horse, a quarter acre organic garden, fruit trees, as well as the vineyard.  

Her first 'job' was growing and selling "Big Max" pumpkins, some of which weighed in
excess of 400 pounds, from roadside stand on the family farm.  In 1977, she and her brother won the
Oregon Giant Pumpkin Contest, with one of their 'smaller' pumpkins compared to those grown in other years.

By the age of eleven, she had her own rabbitry business with nearly 100 rabbits. This is when she learned to make
the tough decisions of what animals to keep in a breeding program, which animals were excellent in conformation,
how to butcher, how to tan their hides and how to keep proper farm records. She later applied this to larger livestock.

tenzicut grew up surrounded by many large, many generation farms. She started picking berries
for a third generation family farm who sold to Smuckers, as well as raising other diversified crops,
livestocks, haying, moving lots of irrigation pipe. It was at this farm for well over a decade that she learned to
work with large livestock, as well as learning the many different aspects of daily farming and troubleshooting
without getting in a panic about it. She also showed cattle and sheep for this family at the summer show circuits,
 as well as assisting in calving, shearing and lambing season. Over the years she did farm tours for 10,000 inner-city kids each October; worked with a flock of 300 Suffolk sheep; helped plant field crops, was employed in the farm store, then ended up working in the farm's small commercial jam factory. These farm jams and other products were sold at 'Made in Oregon', 'Bloomingdale's' and 'Macy's' in New York City. She also worked on various other farms at times, learning...

Involved in 4-H for over thirty years, she went from being a member to a project leader at the age of 15, to the
president of the county Rabbit Advisory group, a superintendent for Clackamas County Fair for 4 years, then a
4-H community coordinator for all the project clubs within the county, teaching well over 200 members. She continued
to support 4-H in Canada and currently is a judge for rabbit shows, demonstration contests and setting
up judging clinics. tenzicut really enjoys teaching kids and helping them reach their full potential.

Over the years she has raised many species and breeds of livestock from rabbits, honey bees, poultry, hogs,
dairy goats, horses, beef & dairy cattle and wool sheep for her spinning wheel, drop spindles and looms.
Currently she raises the rare American White breed of rabbit, Slate turkeys and Barred Plymouth Rocks.
Most of the breeds she chooses are heirloom breeds for conservation reasons.

She was involved with Future Farmers of American (FFA) from 1980-1984, having agricultural classes
from 1 to 4 hours each of her high school days. There she learned how to do many of the agricultural arts
which she still uses in her life and on the land. She then went to college to become a graphic artist, printer
and book publisher, but ended up in the veterinary field as a veterinary technician.  For twenty-two years,
she worked with companion animals, farm livestock and zoo animals in a conservation program,
belonging to the Association of Zoo & Aquariums Veterinary Technicians.

From 1991 to 2001 tenzicut was a volunteer dog handler/trainer for a Search and Rescue Unit and was a certified
Level I & II trainer to teach other handlers how to train and work their dogs. She also owned two small farms in Oregon.

tenzicut immigrated north to Canada in 2001, where she owned a 40 acre diversified farm in the middle of the Cariboo in British Columbia, gardening, raising beef cattle, dairy goats, hogs, heritage poultry and running sleddogs carrying real Canadian mail. The day she moved onto that farm there was a black bear sitting on the front porch greeting her. The only source of heat in her little cabin was firewood taken from the land and neatly stacked in a shed ready for winter.

An avid seed saver for over twenty years, she maintains over 700 varieties of rare heirloom vegetable, grain & flower seeds and encourages others to save garden seeds by holding a Seedy Saturday event each spring to educate others to preserve these unique diversity of agricultural crops. She will be holding at least a couple seed events in the Spring of 2013.

In Canada she was an editor for a weekly newspaper, as well as production of the magazine. "Down to the Roots" Homesteading Magazine came into being after many folk had been begging for her to write a book on homesteading skills and her life. Knowing that she would want to rewrite it the second it was in print, someone suggested doing a magazine format instead and thus "Down to the Roots" Homesteading Magazine was born. Since people only knew her by her net name of 'tenzicut', she used the pseudonym for the magazine, as it helps her get in the mind-frame for writing.

tenzicut returned to the United States in late 2009 where she bought a century old farmhouse in a quaint little farming community. There she is currently writing for various publications, raising her young daughter, a dog, 2 cats,
many rabbits and other small livestocks. You can probably find her somewhere out in the garden....