Welcome to Twisty Mountain

Welcome to Twisty Mountain.

This isn’t a polished lifestyle brand, and it certainly isn’t a grand agricultural empire. It’s a real place, with real mud, real projects, real animals, and a long list of things that still need fixing.

Twisty Mountain sits beside land known as Sunflower Hollow Farm, the name Tara’s dad gave to his place years ago. The hill nearby picked up its own nickname over time, thanks to Tara’s kids, and that name stuck. So here we are: Twisty Mountain. Part family memory, part running nickname, part new chapter.

What we’re building here is pretty simple. We want a life that feels more connected. More practical. More rooted. More honest. We want to grow good things, make useful things, repair what we can, learn what we don’t know yet, and still leave enough room for adventure.

Tara is the engine behind a lot of that life. She knows how to get an amazing amount out of a small piece of ground. She grows, dries, brews, cans, knits, repurposes, thrift-finds, and generally proves that you do not need a giant operation to live well and make something meaningful. She has herbal teas for just about everything, including a nighttime blend I joke about as her witch’s brew, though the truth is she’s better at this than I’ll ever admit too quickly. Around here, the dehydrator might be turning out blood oranges for tea one day and beef jerky the next. The freeze dryer is in regular use, especially when we’re putting together food for backpacking trips.

As for me, I grew up in northeastern Kentucky, and a lot of this feels like coming home in spirit. My heart is Appalachian at its core. I’ve spent much of my life teaching, exploring the outdoors, and learning that good intentions alone do not fix things; sometimes you have to get your hands dirty and figure it out. In my case, that learning curve has included everything from trail lessons to gas stoves to, yes, a memorable septic tank saga. Early on, the tank overflowed. We had it pumped. We still didn’t know what the problem was. Somewhere in that process, Tara caught a small shock from bad wiring, and I found myself halfway down into the septic system of the woman I loved, headfirst, trying to learn on the job. Her dad joked that I’d never come back after that. Instead, I stayed.

The animals keep things honest. The donkeys, Mr. Donkey and Bell — or maybe Iris; the naming remains a bit fluid — make sure no one steps outside unnoticed. Panther, our ancient tailless cat, appears every morning ready for breakfast and has adjusted quite well to being spoiled. And then there are the Asian lady beetles, who have appointed themselves as unpaid, uninvited tenants and seem determined to outnumber us.

This site is not just about what happens on this property. It’s also about the kind of knowledge that too often gets lost. We’ve talked more than once about how many people no longer get the chance to learn practical things: fixing, making, mending, growing, preserving, building, sharpening, maintaining. Not because people are lazy, but because those skills are no longer handed down as naturally as they once were. We want Twisty Mountain to become a place that values that kind of knowledge again.

So this space will grow into a mix of stories, trail lessons, practical resources, gear notes, food ideas, and hopefully connections to people in the community who know how to do things well. Not because we claim to know everything. Quite the opposite. Because we believe there is still tremendous wisdom in rural places, in ordinary people, and in learning directly from those who have done the work.

We’re glad you’re here.

If you came for backpacking, tea, practical skills, donkeys, dirt, dried food, repair stories, or a reminder that life does not have to be all screens and replacement parts, you’re in the right place.

Welcome to Twisty Mountain.