Dawn Combs, Homestead Herbalist and Beekeeper
Name: Dawn Combs
Occupation: Dawn is an ethnobotanist, beekeeper, author, herbal educator and homestead herbalist. She is co-founder of Bees First and co-owner of Mockingbird Meadows, an herbal health farm in Central Ohio that is nationally recognized for her signature line of therapeutic herbal honey spreads.
Place of Residence: Central Ohio
Background and Personal History: Dawn grew up in a “Mother Earth News household.” Her parents have almost every issue. It was in college that she first became interested in studying the medicinal aspects of plants and the way in which we share that information. She cobbled together an undergraduate ethnobotany degree by graduating with a B.A. in both Botany and Humanities/Classics from Ohio Wesleyan University. Before leaving, though, she managed to get herself into a zoology course that was headed to the Amazon. Standing beneath ancient trees in the middle of the rainforest, she heard her calling.
Her next big milestone was apprenticing with Rosemary Gladstar at Sage Mountain in Vermont. Just prior to this, Dawn and her husband had decided to start a family and she had been handed a diagnosis of infertility. While working through the program with Rosemary, Dawn focused heavily on how to balance the endocrine and reproductive systems. The couple would spend a couple years navigating the world of medicalized fertility.
When general practitioners had nothing left to offer, Dawn re-diagnosed herself and created an herbal and whole food protocol. This was to be her greatest clinical experience, resulting in a triumph over infertility, two children, products that were tested within her family and could now be shared with her community, and a new mission: to help others regain control over their health, to provide hope in a hopeless medicalized system of infertility, and to share her story wherever it might help others.
Dawn and her husband are a true team, homesteading in a very open way with their surrounding community. Hoping to teach how to reconnect with the land for greater balance, self-sufficiency and health-care independence by including medicinal herbs along with the all-important vegetable and livestock crops. Through their sustainable beekeeping co-operative, Bees First, they hope to feed the growing demand for their nationally acclaimed herbal honey spreads by financially supporting other beekeepers who wish to run their apiaries in a way that focuses on the health of the bees first.
Dawn and Carson were recognized in 2013 as Homesteaders of the Year by MOTHER EARTH NEWS.
Current Projects: Dawn is currently working through the editing process of her book Conceiving Healthy Babies which will be on bookshelves September 2014. This herbal is for preconception, pregnancy and lactation and details her triumph over infertility. Her husband Carson has written the foreword.
On the farm, Dawn and Carson are building an outdoor classroom to address their growing roster of herbal, sustainable beekeeping and homesteading seminars that have outgrown the front room of their home.
Other Fun Facts: Dawn was also a vocal performance major in college and has been singing on stage for as long as she has talked… maybe even longer.
More Places to Find Dawn on the Web:
