In 2004, Tamara Dean stepped away from the sterile hum of office life and moved to a farm in Wisconsin’s Driftless Area—a land marked by steep hills and deeply carved valleys, laced with spring-fed streams. She was searching for a different way of being: to live lightly on the planet, to find grounding in the rituals of self-sufficiency, and to imagine a future that would be resilient in the face of climate upheaval. She shares twelve finely honed essays that weave together nature, history, and science as she unravels the mysteries of the place she came to call home. Her essays have been featured in The American Scholar, The Georgia Review, The Guardian, Orion, The Southern Review and The Progressive.