Today we’d like to introduce you to Kerry Brown
Hi Kerry, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I’m the fourth generation living on family land in West Knox County. My modern homestead, Bluebird Hill, was established in the fall of 2020 and is designed and operated following the concepts and principles of permaculture – a system of design and implementation that honors and works with natural systems to bring harmony and abundance to the landscape. For 14 years prior to returning to family land, my wife and I developed an urban homestead in North Knoxville that focused on intensive, small space food production along with soil and habitat improvement, micro-livestock systems and frugal living techniques.
I also own and operate Strong Roots Resources, a consulting and education business centered around teaching the concepts of personal resilience, regenerative methods of food production as well as land study, wild and medicinal food foraging and other traditional skills.
Prior to establishing Strong Roots Resources in 2019, I worked for 15 years as an Advanced-EMT in Knox County, along with a variety of side hustles and other jobs that I used as leverage to fund my ultimate goal of achieving lifestyle design – operating my life and business in a manner that was harmonious with natural cycles and closely tied to achieving personal freedom.
I regularly travel, educate and consult regionally, host regular YouTube livestreams and am passionate about helping others achieve all forms of abundance and freedom on all sizes of properties.
I give credit to my ancestors, my wife, family and an incredibly strong network of diverse community members for my level of success. Future plans here at Bluebird Hill include developing an education and gathering center as well as a permaculture-aligned plant nursery.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Recognizing and overcoming certain limiting mindsets and beliefs has been the most consistent lesson and challenge throughout this process. In the days of working in EMS and enduring the combination of poor pay, burn out (therefore limiting the desire to work overtime and earn more) and traumatic calls, I spent many years feeling as if I was spinning my wheels and having no clear direction for my life. I often felt emotionally exhausted and frustrated with my state of being. However, for nearly the entire 15 years of EMS, I was working on our urban homestead, which was my main method for maintaining mental health and balance. The homestead also acted as a space for testing, refining and implementing a variety of closed-loop and ecologically appropriate techniques. The more I disengaged from typical consumerism and distraction-based living, the more I realized I noticed and engaged with systems of abundance.
The first major shift began in October 2019, when I resigned from my EMS position and went to work for a local bakery. This low-stress job allowed me to have mental and emotional space to begin to refine the vision that became Strong Roots Resources. I had a small base of mowing and maintenance customers at this time, but it certainly wasn’t a full-time effort. When the bakery was temporarily closed as a response to Covid in March of 2020, I found myself unemployed and saw that as an opportunity to take Strong Roots Resources full time – initially as a property maintenance and general landscaping effort, but with the desire to consult with and educate homeowners on permaculture-based systems. With so many of my neighbors either working from home or laid off and receiving unemployment funds, they actually had time to spend on their properties and began to engage with the landscape. As I obtained more customers and built a solid reputation, I also recognized a market need – many of my neighbors were planting gardens and fruit trees for the first time and had questions on how to go about that appropriately. I found that my primary interest was of value to many of my neighbors.
I began to educate and consult with customers on resilient food systems, focusing initially on urban and suburban landscapes and gradually scaling up as my own study, understanding and experience grew.
Ironically, my greatest blessing can also be my greatest stressor – I am 100% responsible for managing the positive and negative aspects of this business. I don’t really get to take a break from it, nor do I really want to. Even in the background of my mind, I’m pondering ways to better serve my community without over-leveraging my own energy and focus. Figuring out how to create personal boundaries and not become immersed in people-pleasing has certainly been the biggest learning curve. I also realized I only wanted to work with clients who could understand and lean into the abundance mindset. I found myself in spaces where folks were attempting to prepare for a total societal collapse . A strong sense of fear and anger was often palpable when I was near these individuals. While I could understand and empathize with how they could feel that way, given what our society was dealing with at the time, I had a deep inner sense not to engage with that outlook. I’ve left a lot of money on the table at times because too much of my own energy is drained by that kind of attitude and perception. Perhaps it’s because I’m a Star Wars nerd, but fear does lead to anger, then hate, then suffering and that’s not the future I want to create for myself and others.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I assist land stewards and property owners in building resilient food production systems that are designed to work with nature, improve the local ecology and serve as place of abundance and balance.
In addition to helping create these systems, I also educate about the aspects of the land – what roles the plants and trees already present teach about the nature of the landscape, how the energies of the sun, wind and water move across the land, and in essence, how to better connect with nature and see it as a partner, not as something to be overcame or dominated.
I’m most proud of the community – across multiple states – that I’m part of, with all of us using our attentions and intentions to show others how to build better, more balanced lives by pursuing the concepts of homesteading and permaculture.
Are there any important lessons you’ve learned that you can share with us?
Nature, creation and the creator are the wisest teachers, and when I pay attention to those lessons, I am never steered in the wrong direction.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://strongrootsresources.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/strongrootsresources/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/strongrootsresources
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@strongrootsresources8324
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@kerry.brown792
