In short…..We(John & AJ) met in 2006, & lived in Plymouth, IN at our permaculture-based, educational farm; Luna Hill Farm(Cultivating Community & Celebrating Curiosity) for 10 years, where we raised their 4 kids, ran the Luna Hill Wild School(Nuturing Wonder, with Nature), & hosted many community-building events. Away from the farm, John worked as a carpenter & AJ taught various classes throughout the community. We sold the farm in 2022, converted a bus to a RV in 3 1/2 months, then hit the road to travel the US for 6 months. We lived & traveled for over a year in that home-on-wheels; volunteering, exploring, & learning so much! Then, we sold our first skoolie…..& are now moved into our 2nd self-converted, off-grid skoolie! After listening deeply to all family members input on what should be our next chapter, we have chosen to root back down & are now settled into our new property in Inverness, Florida! We are going to be building an eco-friendly home here and we’re busy at play & work now, developing our land. We are on just over an acre, with 3/4s of the property wild & wooded(just how we like it!) and are loving being stewards to this land-cultivating a forest garden, developing gardens, gray water systems, gathering spaces, & more for the work we feel grateful to be able to uphold here; living with nature & always evolving, with presence.
Find out what’s important to our family here:
WILD: Constantly evolving & adapting. Connected to all. Best not contained.
We are A Wild Family, not THE Wild Family.
CURIOSITY: To approach with wonder & openness, tinged with awe.
The guiding focus at The Luna Hill Wild School was ‘Celebrating Curiosity & Nurturing Wonder, with Nature’. As parents, we have always strived to create an environment for our kids to explore their curiosities, but we also, as adults, prioritize keeping this mindset alive and well. When you see life as an opportunity to learn & grow in as many ways as possible and truly find joy in the process, why not approach the time we have here with wonder, openness to new experiences & a little bit of awe for it all?!
FORAGING: Searching, eating, learning about & from, wild foods.
It all started when our oldest, Lilly, was a baby sitting in the grassy yard, pulling handfuls of grass out & taking them directly to her eager mouth. AJ first went to say, ‘No, wait! I can’t let you eat that!’ but then thought, ‘Wait, can we eat grass?’ And so the fascination & excitement in learning about the plants that grew in our biome began. AJ started by reading every book she could get her hands on, then quickly progressed to seeking mentors in the field to learn from. The whole family joined in the fun & after years of experience foraging almost daily on their land & throughout Northern Indiana, AJ & John ended up created a Forest Garden with over 50 species of edible plants & fungi to teach about & enjoy, through the school they ran & classes they offered at the farm. Knowing what plants are edible (& medicinal, too!) is not only an indisputably valuable skill to have, it’s one that brings our whole family immense joy!
DIET: Food we choose to put into our bodies.
As a family, we went plant-based in Dec 2020 & everyone has reaped the benefits & been so happy we did! While we still feel ‘To each, their own’, our family made this conscious decision for two main reasons; our health & a small step we could take to help fix a broken, narrow-minded agricultural system. Not only did we all feel so much better physically & mentally, but we felt really good about the impact we were making on the earth’s balance & the role we play in it as humans. After raising our own pigs for meat we butchered ourselves, hunting with our kids for deer meat, raising chickens for eggs, and hunting other wild game we came in contact with, we were surprised at how fulfilled & energetic our bodies could be on a plant-based diet-all without killing an animal or participating in the big business of unsustainable meat production. There was no talking our kids into this decision. We went over all the evidence & decided to try it out, together. Making the switch(with no previous experience from John or AJ in this field) turned out to be such a fun, TASTY, exciting adventure. As parents, we’re so grateful & proud of the healthy habits we are passing down to the next generation.
SKOOLIE: A school bus, converted to a home-on-wheels.
We chose to build a skoolie, not because we were day-dreaming of the now flooded Instagram photos that portray the daily life of the modern nomad family with perfect smiles, flawlessly clean tiny spaces, and catchy dancing videos. I didn’t even have an Insta when we first started sketching ideas! And to be completely honest, we’ve met some of those online influencer families & while they are NOT all the same, we saw lots of strange things like skoolie folks living their days inside, on devices all day-coming out to bribe their kids to do reels when the parents had a sudden inspiration of an envious scenario that they could cash in on. And when we first seriously considered building a skoolie(we were all ready with buyers of the farm and everything) when AJ was pregnant for our 3rd child, the true inspiration was threefold; 1)We spend so much time out-of-doors, this just seemed like a way continue that lifestyle, with waaaay less lawn to mow! 2)John is highly suited to build the bus-exactly as AJ wanted it! 3)It was financially brilliant. Same goes with anything; if you are building a house & you can do literally ALL of it yourself, it is way cheaper.
With AJ having years to think about & perfect the design, John having professional level experience in pretty much all things it took to build it, & both being highly motivated to get out on the road to explore with their kids-a dream they’ve been building up to & intentionally planning for years….it’s really no surprise it took him 3 1/2 months to do it all. We are all so grateful we made the plan, took the leap, & did the work to make this dream a reality.
Update 2-2024….we are now moved into our 2nd self-converted Skoolie! We are camping out on our new land in Florida & are finalizing plans for our house-build here! We have loved what our skoolies have given us; the ability to make home & learn wherever we park! And, it’s time to root back down & enjoy land stewardship & (not home-on-wheels) home ownership 🙂 After we sell this skoolie, I’m sure we’ll convert another, smaller bus to take trips in at some point in our futures!
MINDFULNESS: To be here now- aware that our thoughts & emotions will constantly come and then go, if we let them.
We have a lot more to share on this, but for now that will do it:) Making time to update the website as we travel-more to come soon!
A Wild Family 