Hi, I‘m gerda
I'm a retired nurse turned sourdough baker, gardener, and traditional foods enthusiast. I help women move from overwhelmed and reactive to grounded and proactive, one foundational practice at a time.
I came to this work through a health concern that didn't look dramatic from the outside — persistent insomnia, a few other early signals I didn't want to ignore, and a growing resistance to the conventional answer of managing symptoms with prescriptions. A naturopathic doctor opened a door I couldn't close: what if we looked for causes instead?
I was a nurse, a researcher by nature, deep in graduate studies at the time — asking questions was already how I lived. But I quickly discovered what many women discover: there's a gap between conventional medicine and the natural health world, and most of us are left trying to bridge it alone. On one side, reassurance that everything looks normal. On the other, a overwhelming world of protocols, conflicting advice, and strong opinions with very little help learning to actually observe what the body is doing in a calm, grounded, usable way.
I started paying closer attention — to patterns, to foundations, to what my body was trying to communicate rather than what would silence it most quickly. That shift changed everything.
Why Am I Qualified To Do This Work?
I'm a retired registered nurse with over thirty years in healthcare and education. My clinical background gave me a foundation in how bodies actually work — but it's my years as an adult educator, content developer, and writer that shaped how I teach. I know how to take complex, scattered information and organize it into something a real person can actually use.
I also bring a coaching background to this work — which means I'm less interested in giving you answers than in helping you ask better questions, clarify your own values, and build toward goals that are genuinely yours.
I bring all of that not to position myself as the expert with all the answers, but because it shaped how I think about root causes, how I listen, and how I help others find their footing when the information feels overwhelming.
My approach is grounded in something I believe deeply: that caring for our bodies, our food, and the land around us is an act of stewardship — part of what it means to tend what we've been given as image bearers of a wise and good Creator who wants us to care for his creation.
That includes the particular bit of earth we're each responsible for — the land we tend, the food we grow and prepare, and the bodies we inhabit. These are not separate concerns. They are one.
And our bodies themselves are whole and interconnected — not a collection of parts to be managed or fixed independently, but an amazingly designed unity. We are physical, spiritual, emotional, and mental beings, and what touches one part of us touches all of us.
Nothing about this is separate from faith. It's all connected.
Fast forward a few decades: I was filling out a health survey recently and reached the chronic persistent insomnia question. I almost answered yes automatically — and stopped. I couldn't honestly check that box anymore. I worked down the rest of the list and realized I couldn't check any of them. That's not nothing, at sixty-six.
How I live this
Today I grow, forage, ferment, mill, and bake — and I keep it simple. Basic, real ingredients. Old fashineoned practices.
I teach sourdough with fresh-milled ancient grains, traditional food practices, and the kind of foundational health thinking that helps women move from reactive to proactive, from overwhelmed to steady. Not by giving them more to obsess over, but by helping them strengthen foundations, recognise patterns, and develop calmer, more practical discernment in everyday life.
I believe you don't need to become obsessed with your body to care for it well.
I believe what matters more is laying a good foundation, committing to it, and learning to ask better questions. It's less about rules and quick answers and more about critical thinking, asking questions, resilience, a willingness to try things, learn from them, and trust what you observe over time. A healthy dose of stubbornness doesn't hurt either.
That's what this place is about.
A bit like home.
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