Hey there, I'm Annie!
I’m here to help you cut through the noise and actually figure out chickens, gardening, and homesteading—without the overwhelm, guesswork, or Pinterest perfection pressure.
Midwest girlie
I didn’t grow up on some Pinterest-perfect homestead. I grew up in South Dakota, where real food came from someone you knew and "slow living" wasn’t a trend — it was just life. These days, I live tucked into the Idaho mountains, raising birds, building off-grid systems, and figuring it out as I go. I'm not fancy. I'm just resourceful, stubborn, and not here to be told by the FDA what's "safe."
Green Thumb Guru
If I’m not out wrangling chickens or hauling buckets, I’m probably elbow-deep in the garden. I grow what I eat because I don’t want produce that’s been sprayed, picked before it's ripe, shipped, and stored for weeks. Give me dirt under my nails and heirloom seeds over sterile grocery store shelves any day.
Community Builder
I’m not interested in chasing followers — I’m here to build something real. Whether it’s helping you automate your coop, decode your chicken’s weird behavior, or learn why your towels feel crunchy (hint: it’s your detergent), I create tools and content that actually help. I believe in local connections over internet likes, and if I can help you grow your first garden or raise your first flock, that’s a win in my book.
Why Trust ME
Because I’m not here to sell you a fantasy — I’m living the real thing.
I didn’t grow up doing this. I learned the hard way: one frozen waterer, failed garden, and rogue chicken at a time. I built my homestead from scratch in the Idaho mountains, off-grid and off-script — with a grow room inside and almost 100% chemtrail-proof greenhouse outside (yes, really).
I don’t gatekeep. I share exactly what’s worked for me — from mealworms to meat birds, soil hacks to coop automations — because you deserve more than half-baked advice from someone who’s never actually hatched a chicken.
I’m not a guru, I’m just saying what everyone’s thinking: the system’s broken, and growing your own food is the most radical act of rebellion we’ve got left.
So if you want someone who gets it — someone who’s walked through the overwhelm and figured out how to make this lifestyle doable (and actually fun) — you’re in the right place.
Let’s grow something real.
Why choose my course
Because Googling every chicken question at midnight isn’t a strategy.
My "Hatch to Harvest" course is the guide I wish I had when I started — no fluff, no filler, just straight-up answers and hard-earned experience. It's for people who actually want to raise their own meat birds without the overwhelm, confusion, or sugar-coated nonsense.
Inside, you'll get step-by-step instructions for everything from setting up your brooder to harvesting clean, healthy meat — ethically, confidently, and with your sanity intact. Whether you're brand new or just tired of piecing together info from a bunch of random YouTube videos, this course will walk you through it all — start to finish.
You don’t need to be a full-blown farmer to raise your own food. You just need someone who’s done it, messed it up a few times, and figured out what actually works.
I made this for the everyday homesteader who’s ready to do things differently — because raising your own food shouldn’t be complicated. It should be common sense.
What problems can I solve
You’re here because you want real answers from someone who’s lived it — the good, the bad, and the broody.
If you’ve ever felt…
Overwhelmed by chick care and unsure if you're doing it "right"
Confused about coop setup, predator protection, or how to keep things clean
Frustrated with all the conflicting info about raising meat birds ethically
Grossed out by store-bought chicken and ready to take control of your food
Tired of wasting time searching through YouTube videos and Facebook groups
I’ve got you.
I’ll walk you through every part of raising chickens from hatch to harvest with clear, practical steps — no jargon, no guilt-tripping, no fluff. Just real help from someone who’s done it off-grid, on a budget, and without a team of farmhands.
This isn’t about being perfect. It’s about learning, doing, and feeding your family real food with real confidence.
Read The Blog
Why I Had All My Mercury Fillings Removed (And What It Did to My Brain)
I had silver fillings most of my life. I thought they were safe. But nobody told me they were 50% mercury.
For years I felt slow. Exhausted no matter how much I slept. I first really noticed it in college — working full time and going to school full time. I told myself it was burnout. I told myself that's just what adulting felt like.
I normalized it completely. It wasn't burnout. It was my body quietly fighting a constant heavy metal exposure — one that had been sitting in my mouth for years.
What Are Amalgam Fillings, Actually?
Those "silver" fillings your dentist gave you as a kid? They're not silver. They're approximately 50% mercury, mixed with silver, tin, and copper.
Mercury vapor is continuously released from these fillings — and it doesn't just stay in your mouth. Research shows it passes directly through the blood-brain barrier, where it can accumulate in brain tissue. The half-life of inorganic mercury in the brain is estimated to be years — not days, not weeks. Years.
Most conventional dentists have been placing these in people's mouths for over 150 years and calling them safe. Meanwhile, over 150 countries have signed the Minamata Convention on Mercury — an international treaty specifically aimed at phasing out dental amalgam because of environmental and health concerns.
Draw your own conclusions.
The Part That Pushed Me Over the Edge
I could have kept living with the brain fog. I had normalized it so completely that I didn't even know it was there anymore — it was just life.
But here's what I couldn't ignore:
When you're pregnant, your body detoxes heavy metals directly into the placenta.
That means even if you're doing everything right — clean food, filtered water, no unnecessary exposures, skipping vaccines — if you have mercury fillings, there is still a direct pathway for heavy metal contamination to your baby. Before they ever take their first breath.
That was a hard no for me.
Safe Removal — Why It Matters
This is where most people get it wrong. You can't just walk into any dentist and say "take them out." If amalgam removal isn't done correctly, you actually spike your mercury exposure during the removal process — breathing in vapors that are released when the fillings are drilled out.
Safe removal requires a specific protocol:
Rubber dams to prevent swallowing debris
Sectioning the filling into chunks rather than grinding
High-volume evacuation to capture vapors
Supplemental oxygen in some cases
Proper detox support before and after
I had my amalgam fillings safely removed at BioSmiles in Eagle, Idaho, under the care of Dr. Sam Petersen — a biological dentist who uses exactly this kind of protocol. He's fluoride-free, mercury-free, and treats dentistry as what it actually is: a whole-body health issue.
What Changed After Removal
The brain fog I had normalized for years lifted.
I didn't know how heavy that weight was until it was gone. The slowness, the exhaustion that didn't match how much I slept, the feeling of operating under a cloud — it cleared.
I'm not going to sit here and promise you that removing your fillings will fix everything. Bodies are complicated. But I will tell you that for me, the change was real and noticeable — and I wish someone had told me about this years ago.
What to Do If This Resonates With You
If you've had silver fillings most of your life and you've been dealing with brain fog, unexplained fatigue, or just a feeling of never quite being sharp — I'd encourage you to look into biological dentistry.
Ask about:
Safe amalgam removal protocol — make sure they follow one
Biocompatibility testing — to see how your body responds to different dental materials
What support you need during and after removal — detox matters
If you're in the Treasure Valley, I can't recommend BioSmiles enough. Dr. Sam Petersen is the real deal.
📍 BioSmiles — Eagle, Idaho | @theboisenaturaldentist
This is part of my ongoing dental health series. Next up: what cavitations are, why most dentists miss them, and what happened when I had cavitation surgery on my wisdom teeth.
Disclaimer: I'm not a doctor and this is not medical advice. This is my personal experience. Always do your own research and consult a qualified healthcare provider.
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