Hi, Welcome to my Blog, I'm...Ummm....

well, my daughter and her friends have started calling me by my childhood nickname, Zanny. It's also my art signature. But my real name, given at birth is Rosanna Gwinn Dyrland-Mecklenburg. My mom was an artist and my grandmother was a feminist, so my dad had no choice but to give me a hyphenated-name. That only got me arrested once, "I swear officer, I gave you my legal name!" but there have been plenty of other less orange-suited mishaps along the way. I still haven't been physically married, which is crazy since living for 42 years as Rosanna Gwinn Dyrland-Mecklenburg has been a royal pain in the ass, but apparently, I'm a glutton for punishment. I have, however, been in a loving marriage for the last 12 years with Shaun Griffith (and he did ask me to marry him, we just haven't gotten to it yet. And no, I am not interested in hearing anyones advice on it, I am perfectly happy with how things are). Anyways, Izzy was 4 years old when we met Shaun, and her last name is Mecklenburg, but our boys are Miles and Finn Griffith (Do you see how simple that is...? Miles and Finn Griffith). When Izzy was in elementary school, she came up with McGriff and that's how we referred to ourselves as a family for awhile. So that's who I am, Rosanna Gwinn Dyrland-Mecklenburg, aka Rosanna Mecklenburg, aka Rosanna Griffith, aka Rosanna McGriff. To keep it simple, I'll stick with Zanny. It's the name that feels most like me anyways. 

This is my first blog, so I figured I'd introduce myself. I promise, the next one will be more interesting. I do want to add that on this blog I plan to share what my life looks like as a creative. I paint, I draw, I grow things, I harvest and do my best to preserve, I raise children, care for the pups, and I research like crazy. I live in Lewistown which is the center of Montana, in a windy, growing zone 4b. I also have to admit that in my earlier life I studied English Literature and recieved a degree in English Lit with a second degree in Secondary Education. (Basically, I could have been a Highschool English teacher) So, I love to write as well. When we moved to Lewistowm, Shaun was planning on putting his Wildlife Biology degree to use at the BLM and I thought I would teach. Instead, Shaun and I founded Griffith Contracting in 2012. Having put ourselves through college, we were drowning in student loans, and started brainstorming on how to make it in this world.

After staying home with the kids and playing a supportive role in griffith Contracting for eight years, I decided to follow my own dreams and I founded Zanny Art in 2020. Over the last three years, we were finally able to purchase some land in the country and build a shop. The shop was desperately needed since we were running both businesses out of our 900 square foot home in town, along with raising three children and two dogs in that space. Now we are both blissfully using our new shop as a home base for our business adventures, and looking forward to more living space in the future. When we got the land we started dreaming big, and decided to plant a Permaculture Orchard.  The orchard was planted two springs ago, and we named it Badger Hill Orchard. In the next year, we plan on building a home. I hope to document our process mainly with Zanny Art and Badger Hill Orchard, but also share our lives with you along with triumphs, failures, and pertinent information for creatives and growers. I might throw in some blogs about building a home... but we'll see how that goes first... Hopefully this blog will become a bright moment in your day. I'm sure it will be in mine.

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A rare picture of the whole family here, minus the dogs. But a normal day in Lewistown...