Jackie Clay is a lifetime homesteader and horseman. She has lived much of her life off-grid, has raised and trained Morgan horses for decades, and in her younger years, rode bareback bronc in a few rodeos.

While living in Montana’s remote mountains at 7,600 feet, (1,000 feet above the Continental Divide) where they were snowed in for 5 months out of the year, her family took several trips with their horses to the Upper Green River area in Wyoming to explore the Bridger-Teton Wilderness, which became the setting for her Jess Hazzard series of traditional western novels.

Jackie has hunted deer, elk, and moose, packing in the meat to can up. She and her husband, Will, have a 120-acre homestead in way-northern Minnesota, in the middle of hundreds of acres of woods, where they raise their own cattle, goats, chickens, turkeys, and, of course, several horses. They live in a log cabin, have a half-acre fenced orchard and berry patch, and several large gardens She cans and dehydrates much of the family’s food, reducing their store-bought groceries to nearly nil.

She is a frequent speaker at homesteading, sustainable living, and other fairs and events across the country. She and Will also conduct seminars at their homestead where folks come to learn homesteading skills. They also sell open-pollinated and heirloom seeds on their website, seedtreasures.com.

Jackie has written dozens of freelance articles for such magazines as The Western Horseman, Mother Earth News, Rural Heritage, and Country Woman. She is a continuing writer for Backwoods Home Magazine, both of feature articles and her familiar Ask Jackie column. She also blogs twice a week at www.backwoodshome.com, where she updates readers about the goings-on at her homestead, and answers homesteading and canning questions. She is the author of several books including Growing and Canning Your Own Food, Jackie Clay’s Pantry Cookbook, Starting Over, and Homesteading Simplified: Living The Good Life Without Losing Your Mind.

She loves being with her family, listening to the wilderness sound of wolves howling in the pines, riding and driving horses, and sitting with Will on the front porch of their log cabin.