We might be having a mini-collective-mid-life crisis at our house.

Both of us have jobs that sound perfectly fine on paper. We have good benefits and lovely co-workers. And both of us start to have panic attacks when we think about spending the next 30 years in front of a computer.

So we come home from work and daydream. “Should we farm seaweed? I heard on a podcast that it could be an amazing way to sequester carbon and a healthy food source.” “Should we grow mushrooms? They can remediate soil contamination and are delicious.”

We’ve had some good ideas but don’t have any seaworthy skills and apparently are allergic to oyster mushroom spores. We had our antennas up for an idea that inspired us, matched our abilities and didn’t activate an immune response.

In a just a few months a great book and inspirational YouTube video have changed our lives. It sounds dramatic but I wouldn’t be contemplating farming and writing this blog post if I hadn’t read Growing a Revolution by David Montgomery and my husband hadn’t stumbled upon a lecture by Elizabeth and Paul Kaiser.