Blessings and LOVE - Hello! My name is Stacey and I'm the owner of Garden Therapy Yorkton. I'm so happy you have connected with me via my webpage. Let me tell you a little about myself and my family and the products and services that we offer.
A wee back story:
My journey into health and wellness started back in 04' when I was diagnosed with RA. Being 26, I was completely floored by this debilitating disease, coupled with the info that we could not have children at that time (due to meds). I immediately went into counselling, started seeing a Naturopath doctor and studies into Nutrition. My husband and I were living in Guelph, Ont. at the time. We began a love for raw foods, took sprouting courses and started making our own sprouts and raw treats. I continued studies into holistic nutrition, homeopathy, herbalism and eating raw (the idea was to get my body into a alkaline state so it could help heal the acidic disease I was experiencing). We also started enjoying raw fermented goodies like sauerkraut and microgreens.
Fast forward to 2009. I have a brain scan for MS the day before I am flying out to my new home in Yorkton Saskatchewan. Auto immune diseases are tricky things and back then the doctors were still uncertain exactly which one, or what exactly was causing my pain and debilitation. I had been blessed to know a doctor who prescribed me Olive Leaf extract and by the grace of god, stars aligning, my alkaline state......my blood infection levels started to come back to normal and I was able to walk again (over time).
But we had already sold our home in Guelph, had purchased a rather small home in Yorkton (his folks live in Norquay). Rob's mom and sister were/are both nurses and we felt at the time that this was a good decision - especially if I had needed extra medical care and also the whole reduced mortgage thing. But I was on the mend AND now we had moved from Guelph, Ont. to Yorkton, SK.
About Rob and Stacey (me):
My husband is passionate about Permaculture - he got his PDC back in '94 in Ont. when he received instruction by Chuck Marsh and Peter Bane. He also has a diploma in Forestry. Being raised in a drywall family, he did that to earn money but still had adventures (before me!) where he assisted in many a natural build like a Straw-bale home in Alberta and a Passive Solar Re-Use build in Ont. When we met he was always eager to share his knowledge of gardening, water harvesting, food preservation and permaculture ethics with me (and everyone around him!).
In 2012 - we are now in Yorkton (since 2009) - I was inspired by Rob to take my first PDC; first babe in tote with me. I took 2 PDC kinda back to back as that felt right for me. One was taken in Manitoba at The Harvest Moon Society and then I flew down to Colorado (solo) and took one at CRMPI (Central Rocky Mountain Permaculture Institute).
With my background in Horticulture, Holistic Nutrition, Permaculture, Homeopathy and more OH and YES my HEALTH - I was now ready to teach and we had regained our lives back....and one beautiful daughter. Garden Therapy Yorkton (GT Bliss) was in full swing offering Holistic Nutritional Consulting, Permaculture Design, an Organic Basic Program, we had housed Interns and taught our first PDC (Permaculture Design Certificate). I began contributing more to a local Sask Journal called WhoLife and was pretty involved with various local non-profit groups and events. I also began research into Essential Oils companies and became a wholesale member with Young Living around this time (was it 2014?) I taught a lot of Fermentation workshops across the Prairies and was involved with a few Permaculture Designs (one of them was on campus at the UofR!). I also travelled to Winnipeg for a few years to be apart of a summer course 'Creating a Community Commons' and had the pleasure to teach the Permaculture component of that. Sustainable South Osborne you gotta check that out you guys! Rob and I took a Cob Oven workshop build up in northern Sask and got the hands on knowledge we needed to build our own in 2012. (we even moved it to our new home in Rhein....keep reading)
We were involved with a lot of local food movements in the Yorkton area (like Yorkton Seedy Saturday, the Yorkton Gardener's Market) and hosted a Food is Free stand for a few years. I loved receiving calls and messages from folks offering testimonials regarding their health after they had begun their fermentation journey and/or oily journey with me! I'm pleased to say that I've shipped cultures ALL across Canada (and a few have made their way overseas!) So cool. So empowering!
2014 - Daughter #2! Continued on the same blissful path but began to see that 2 kids make life a wee bit more difficult. Life threw a couple more curveballs (as it likes to do!) and although we loved our house in Yorkton and the close community we had been apart of -> we sold in 2017 and bought a home in the village of Rhein (a quaint few acres right in town - a beautiful century home).
2018 - ok we are now catching up! (Thanks for bearing with me and reading through this!) We have been here in Rhein since June of 2017 and it's been a huge learning curve, a blessing and such fun. Now that our girls are 7 and 4, we feel that we are treading water a bit more now and are ready to yet again re-emerg ourselves into the world of Permaculture, teaching workshops and more. We have a cool space here in Rhein and big dreams. We would love to create more community here and have many resources to do so.
Thanks as always for your love and support! We all move forward together! .
Rob and Stacey Tress
Rhein, Sask.