Hey Reader,
It’s that time of year where I write my annual intro for a program I’m in, but this year, it really feels like a reintroduction on so many levels.
Hi, I’m Dusti, and on my business card - the first one I’ve had in years - it says I’m a grower, writer, activist, and marketer.
If you’re new here, that probably checks out. If you’ve been here a while and find yourself popping an eyebrow and asking, “Are you sure?” I’d respect that, too.
Because PHEW has this been a wild year and a half or so.
I’ve made a multitude of plans and thrown them out for as many reasons. Things that felt like a sure bet at the moment had a bat taken to them over and over again. People I thought were on my team demonstrated they very much weren’t.
Like many others who saw the writing on the wall with the election, the end of 2024 and early 2025 felt like a reckoning I wasn’t ready for, lifting me up by my collar and letting my feet dangle underneath me while I attempted to find my footing.
But if I’m honest, I’d been flailing since a trip to NYC May 2024 that changed everything for me, and after that, I spent a lot of time grieving the lives I wasn’t living.
You ever been some place and instantly knew you belonged there? Take that knowing, add a baby, a complicated custody situation, and losing most of your income, knowing you need to change careers, and it’s a perfect recipe for an extended existential crisis.
I wasn’t where I was supposed to be or doing what I was supposed to be doing. The way forward? Not exactly clear, and I felt pinned down by a million different things.
That grief was real and necessary, but it couldn’t be where I stayed.
But when the inauguration happened this past January, I had a download from the universe that wouldn’t shut up, and it said, “Plant something.”
In February, I bought the biggest greenhouse I could fit in my backyard, a hydroponic unit, and decided to start seeds for me and anyone I knew who wanted to grow their own food.
By March, the project had a name and a longing.
By May, I was selling plants at markets.
By September, I was finally ready to commit fully to Hearth & Hollow - whatever it ends up deciding it wants to be.
That’s when things really started to clear up for me.
Hearth & Hollow is the new business that was born out of my need to meet the moment with action and a return to the work that’s in my blood - growing food, just like my great-grandparents who treated their backyard like a small farm. It’s a plant nursery and CSA that’s rooted in the belief that growing food is an act of resistance and resilience - a way to build community, reclaim agency, and create the kind of future we want to live in. But it’s bigger than just selling plants. I want to be a resource, connector, and champion for the movement towards local food sovereignty, using my marketing background for good to amplify all the incredible work happening in our community and why it matters so much.
I also own the reinvention co, the home of my marketing work since 2011. I work with small businesses who’d rather work with one wildly efficient and highly competent person than an expensive agency, and while I don’t talk about marketing as much as I used to, you can still pay me to help you with that. The catch is we have to be a values match, because I will not spend one more second of my life using my powers of communication and connection for anything that isn’t carrying us towards a more equitable world for all.
Right now, I’m showing up to holiday markets selling jam and plant CSA shares, planning out next year’s garden and planting schedule, helping my middle kiddo figure out the upcoming transition into high school, and desperately needing my toddler to sleep past 4:00am.
And as my older kids prepare to launch into the world, I’m acutely aware that the work I’m doing now isn’t just about me finding my way back to meaningful work - it’s about showing them what it looks like to meet a moment with courage and action. To pivot when you need to. To build something that matters even when it’s hard and uncertain. Because what kind of world am I sending them into, and what kind of example am I setting for how to show up in it?
This is my duty to them: to fight for a world worth inheriting, and to demonstrate that when things feel impossible, you plant something anyway.
If you would have told me this time last year I’d be a vendor at the local farmers market, I would have laughed in your face, but it looks like the universe is laughing in mine, because wow - what a year. What a pivot! What a relief to find out that perhaps I was closer than I thought this whole time to getting back to work that is truly meaningful and making a difference in my community.
It’s way bigger than jam, bigger than a plant CSA, and bigger than me.
We are living in times where there is so much change afoot, and we have the chance to make a difference on a scale we haven’t seen in my lifetime. I’m choosing to believe that is the silver lining of this year.
Who would have dreamed we could have a charming, socialist mayor leading New York? Or that our communities would come together to feed each other after Republicans voted to take food out of the mouths of children? Or that our cities would rise up to fight the fascists in such incredible and necessary ways?
We have so much work to do to ensure America becomes what she always wanted to be, and it feels like I’ve begun to find my place in that story - and in many ways, my own, too.
This past year, I’ve been feeling my way through the dark, following my feet towards the next right thing like a bright indistinct light in the distance.
But in 2026? Those steps are landing with a confidence and sure-footedness, because I know where I’m going.
So if you’re wondering what I’m up to these days or how you can be part of it, here’s where we are:
What I can help you with:
- Creating a plan you’ll actually use, whether it’s a marketing plan for your business or a planting plan for your garden.
- Nonfiction book marketing campaigns that are as focused on selling your programs as they are books
- Creating resources to help your community find resources
Ways we can work together:
- Invite me to speak at your organization
- Buy (or sponsor) a plant CSA spot, seed sprouting kit, or jam
- Commission a custom planting plan for your garden
If you’re local to me:
- Visit me at the Vancouver Farmers Market
- Connect with me about community food sovereignty initiatives
- Reach out! I’m deeply interested in collabs with folks who care about these topics, too.
Questions I’m sitting with:
- How can I have the biggest impact in building community resilience and food security?
- Who do I want to become as I step more fully into this work?
- Who are the right collaborators and community members to build this vision with?
And if you’re still here reading this, I want to say thank you for sticking with me. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt so scattered/torn/unclear, but I continue to be reminded that clarity comes from action, not certainty.
I’m not the same person I was this time last year on so many levels - not least of which includes coming to terms with motherhood in a new way, a style transformation, losing weight, unexpectedly starting a new business, and getting real about my queer identity. The in-between space that is Not Knowing isn’t one I feel comfortable in, but it’s also not something that can be rushed or tied up into a nice, neat story before it’s ready.
What I do know is this: I don’t need to have all the answers to start doing the work. I just need to show up, keep planting, and trust that the path reveals itself to those willing to walk it.
So here I am. A grower, writer, activist, and marketer who’s beginning to learn how to live into all of those identities at once - not because it’s easy, but because it’s necessary.
Welcome to the reinvention.
Until next time,