Debbie Moors grew up in Ohio, and when she wasn’t at the barn riding or grooming horses, she was curled up with the works of Marguerite Henry, Walter Farley and James Herriot. Her grandmother taught her to knit, and her grandfather gave her a love for gardening and cooking. “I don’t step into my garden without my grandfather at my shoulder,” she says. “The scent of soil, taste of green beans straight off the vine, and fragrance of roses after rain take me right back to his well-tended garden.”
Debbie earned a degree in magazine journalism at Bowling Green State University, with a year’s stint at the University of Idaho to pick up a minor in animal science. In that year, the suburban horse girl learned how to inoculate cattle, milk dairy cows and candle eggs. During summers between college semesters, she worked on Mackinac Island, Mich., with the carriage horses, and there met her husband, Kirk.
The couple still enjoys time with horses, going for the occasional drive with a big Drum horse named Addie. At home in a small town in Colorado, they have an intensely dignified Dalmatian, an equally undignified Weimaraner, two cats, one English Angora rabbit, and a flock of 10 hens that make regular unsanctioned forays into Debbie’s intensively planted backyard garden.
When she’s not tending to her plants and animals, Debbie enjoys stringing words together to write about those subjects she’s enjoyed all her life: horses, hens, gardening, cooking, knitting and spinning. Debbie has worked for several major equine publications and has written for Hobby Farm Home and Urban Farm. Her first story for Urban Farm, “P is for Prosper,” was based on an interview with urban-farming pioneer Will Allen, and she considers meeting him a month later at the Denver Urban Farm workshop a career highlight.
“His work for food justice inspires me daily,” Debbie says. “It sparked the creation of an all-volunteer community church garden that provided nearly 500 pounds of food for the food pantry last year and has brought together a committee of gardeners dedicated to providing healthy, organic food for those who need it.”
Read more about Debbie, the cottage arts, and her hens, horses and kids in her blog at coopandcottage.blogspot.com.