You can view Christie's complete blog archives here, as they continue to grow over time.

Christie Green grew up in the southeastern part of Tennessee and lived with her family on a beautiful piece of land until she left for college. She returns to visit often. She tells us that she goes there as much to be with the land as she does to visit with her family. Some in Christie's family are farmers; some are more closely aligned with the woods. Between the two, Christie was nurtured to have a sense of respect for and kinship with the valleys and mountains.

Christie lives now with her husband and two children on the southern edge of the Bluegrass in Rockcastle County, Kentucky. They share their mini-farm with Poco the Faithful dog, a passel of charismatic barn cats, three pleasure horses, some industrious hens, and a small flock of wild turkeys.

Her daughter was born while Christie was an undergraduate, and Christie spent her first six years as a single mom. Now they are a bigger family with better fortunes, but sometimes Christie and her daughter miss the private togetherness that they used to share.

She and her husband, Darrell, occupy much of their spare time tending a garden, from minding a cold frame and starting seeds in December and January to working up and stocking away the surplus in August and September. The rest of their free time they spend outdoors, hiking, canoeing, riding our horses. She says that they stay so busy that they don’t need a T.V. They only keep one for watching movies when it’s rainy or cold.

Christie works for a local public health department. In local public health people wear many hats; Christie works most often with interpreter services, information technology, and communications. While this doesn’t always play out in her work, in her mind she sees Public health and the health of our land, air, and water as part of the same package. She says, "We can’t consider our own health without considering the health of the world around us. I am optimistic that the two disciplines will become more intertwined in the future."

Seventeen years ago, Christie's favorite professor at Berea College called her a Pantheist after she confided in him that she was certain the trees have a tangible spirit. Christie puts it this way, "Trees are our brothers on earth – they breathe in what we breathe out, and we, frail things, die without their exhalations. If I succeed at only one thing in my life, I would want to be successful at teaching my children and other young ones to honor green growing things as much as we honor other human beings."

We're simply ecstatic that Christie has joined our writers' community. Christie welcomes you to browse through and read entries from her archives here.