Stacy Tornio is an Oklahoma girl at heart, though she’s lived in Wisconsin for the last 10 years. As editor of Birds & Blooms Magazine, Stacy is able to share her love of backyard nature. Her first book, Cathy’s Animal Garden, takes readers on a picture journey into the neighbor’s scary backyard in search of a homerun baseball. Project Garden, her recent book, is a monthly guide filled with activities to keep the whole family gardening all year long. Along with her husband, Steve, Stacy enjoys watching her two children explore nature in their Milwaukee backyard and on trips up north.
Ken Keffer was born and raised in Wyoming. A vagabond naturalist, he’s done a little bit of everything, from monitoring mice and vole populations and picking up carnivore scat in Grand Teton National Park to researching flying squirrels in the Tongass National Forest of southeast Alaska, and monitoring Bactrian camels in Mongolia’s Great Gobi Strictly Protected Area. He’s also worked as an environmental educator in Wyoming, northern New Mexico, coastal Maryland, and along the shores of Lake Erie in Ohio. Ken enjoys birding, floating on lazy rivers, and fly fishing in the mountains out west.
Here are a few more random facts about Stacy and Ken:
Stacy…
- Has bluebirds and wrens using nest boxes in her backyard
- Teaches kids gardening classes as part of her volunteer work with Master Gardeners
- Has great memories of watching the killdeer growing up in Oklahoma
- Grows lots of veggies in her backyard each year using the square foot gardening method
- Trained for a half marathon while writing her second book
- Loves the first snowfall
- Ran her own veggie stand as a kid at the local farmer’s market
- Dreams of having chickens, but her current city won’t allow it
- Saw her first Snowy Owl with Ken on the Milwaukee lakefront
- Despite loving nature, is a wuss when it comes to touching nature
Ken…
- Named his dog Willow The Wonder Mutt after the state bird of Alaska
- Enjoys Green Zebra Tomatoes sliced thin and salted heavily
- Lived on a floating house in southeast Alaska
- Bands birds from Ruby-crowned Kinglets to Great Blue Herons
- Owns two pair of wooden snowshoes and an old bamboo fishing rod
- Saw the Atlantic Ocean for the first time from South Africa
- Owned a cattle herd of one growing up, and he named the cow Uno
- Curls all winter long and occasionally in the summer
- Saw his first Snowy Owl with Stacy on the Milwaukee lakefront
- Despite loving watersports, doesn’t know how to swim
