Our Story

We are Now Vertakking. (Pronounced “ver-talk-ing”)

Vertakking is Dutch for “branching out; fork in a conversation or road”, which is what we want this blog to be for you, our reader(s): a branching in the way you see and interact with the huge diverse and wonderful world of nature right outside your screen!

We are a couple that is focusing on becoming more sustainable, helping promote alternative lifestyle changes, and ways to help others and ourselves continuously appreciate the little things in life. We come from a background of nature loving since childhood; where Mr Vertakking (Mr V) as a child would save boxelder bugs from being squished by classmates, and Mrs Vertakking (Mrs V) would rescue stranded horseshoe crabs (even putting them on her face!) . We met in college where we both studied Fisheries and Wildlife/Conservation Biology, and we were both training for the US Army.

Our similar interests kindled our friendship and later our relationship. Our inspiration to go against the grain and live in a 296 square foot tiny house started when we were sick of paying for crappy apartments, but we didn’t know enough about real estate to be comfortable with $200,000 in debt. The alternative was to forge our own path and live in a tiny house on wheels. Now we are both studying for our masters degrees and in our spare time we rehabilitate opossums, teach about bees and beekeeping, and create edible landscapes.

We decided to start this blog because so many people want to do good in this world but they just don’t know where to start, and through our strange life experiences we realized that it’s not as scary as it seems. We want to help you see the little things in life, show how to incrementally change YOUR life for the better, and how to live more with less! We hope you take bits and pieces of what we have done and are doing and make them yours, branch out from the status quo, and tell us how you are changing your life, and the lives of the creatures around you for the better!