Health and Harvest in South Dakota-12

August 4, 2024

Timber Lake is a small town in the heart of South Dakota farmland, so you might be curious how we ended up there.

I could make this a short story, but since health has been a passion of mine even before aviation, I’ll share the long version.

—A little side story about health—

About three years ago I found myself in a frustrating spot. I had been hearing all sorts of contradicting things about health, had tried different diets and approaches to being healthy, but hadn’t see a lot of positive changes. This left me confused and frustrated, but instead of letting it go, It made me more curious and intent on finding what was truly healthy for me and my family. Around this time I stumbled upon The Less Stressed Life podcast by Christa Biegler, and it felt like striking gold.

Christa interviewed many interesting people, but overall her podcast focused on reducing stress, nourishing, and supporting your body. She made sense of symptoms that many providers dismissed, and saw them as important signs pointing to root causes with actual solutions. She specialized in helping women and kids with eczema and allergies, but the more I listened I could tell that this was just scratching the surface of what she helped women navigate.

By western medicines terms I was healthy, but I had high expectations for my health. I had recently went through a troubled pregnancy that ended in a preterm delivery followed by another pregnancy that ended in a miscarriage. Then there were issues with sleep, rashes, and hormones. As I searched for answers I found alternative providers that would address health from one direction—say mineral imbalances, or one that would look at gut health, or diet, but when I found Christa she put them all together. She looked at mineral status, nervous system regulation, adrenal and gut health, toxin load, circadian rhythm, and many other factors that impacted health. I also loved that through her podcast she was exposed to all sorts of ideas, but had the real life application of seeing what was practical and helpful with her clients.

I listening to her podcast for six months then decided to work with her as a client. After four months of working with Christa most of my symptoms resolved, but I was grateful to have the option to continue learning along side of her. I participated in weekly calls, breath work sessions, and continued to have access to the learning modules online. When I felt ready to step away, I left the program feeling empowered to recognize what my body was trying to tell me and had practical action steps to move forward.

I’ve learned that health is a non-linear journey. Sometimes there are easy fixes, sometimes you work hard for wins, sometimes you take breaks, but you always come back to learning about yourself and moving forward.

I share my experience because I’m convinced there’s few people who wouldn’t benefit from working with Christa and finding someone who can help you get to root cause isn’t easy. Everyone deserves the opportunity to feel empowered and take control of their health.

—Back to the story—

Christa had heard about our trip to Wisconsin, and when I asked if anyone had ever landed a plane in her giant grassy front yard (after seeing it on Instagram) she graciously welcomed us to stop in. It turned out Timber Lake was a great midway point between Wisconsin and Montana so we took her up on the offer.

As we approached Timber Lake the wind was whipping, so instead of landing in her front yard with a crosswind, we landed on her driveway and taxied up to her house

We were hardly on the ground 20 minutes before we were piling in to their jeep and Christa was driving through the fields taking us to where her husband and son were finishing the winter wheat harvest.

Woodsen, Melozi and Yukla jumped in the combine with her husband and the rest of us jumped in the combine with Max, her ten year old son. Max drove the combine like a pro, and explained the ins-and-outs of harvesting wheat and told us about their family farm.