Our Story

Stacey and Alex met as students and apprentices at the Blue Ridge School of Herbal Medicine in 2011. Their instant attraction quickly became a deep union. After Alex completed his studies in 2012, he joined Stacey on her family’s land in the foothills of the Southern Appalachians to support her efforts to transition her grandparent's conventional farm into a homestead sanctuary.

Now, having joined forces, the homestead sanctuary is evolving to be a community center for education and healing, with a strong focus on wild foods, herbal medicines, and nature connection.

The great blue heron (Ardea herodias) is an aquatic bird that they find strength in together, and so the couple now refers to the land and their mission as Ardea Homestead Sanctuary.

 Stacey Costner                                            Alexander Meander

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Stacey grew up on the land of Ardea. Even before she could walk, her Dad carried her in a backpack to the barn each morning to feed the animals. She considers these relationships with the goats, peacocks, calves, and chicks of her childhood to be a true blessing.

She left home to  attend UNC-Chapel Hill and received a B.S. in Psychology and a Minor in Religious Studies in 2007. Following her graduation, she took time off to prepare for graduate school and moved to a small, homesteading community outside of Chapel Hill. This experience brought her back to her roots. She decided to leave the university life behind and devote her life to connecting with and stewarding the land.

To foster this journey, Stacey pursued one of her lifelong dreams – a thru hike of the Appalachian Trail. With much time for reflection along this seven month journey, she realized that she was being called home to steward her family’s land. After completing the AT in 2009, she moved home and, following the advice of Gary Snyder, she “found her place on the planet, dug in, and took responsibility from there.” Stacey began homesteading with a focus on growing food. With the help of her Dad, she began selling produce at the local Foothills Farmer's Market in 2010 and continues to be a vendor at this market.

To enhance her homesteading skills Stacey began studying plant medicines. She attended the Blue Ridge School of Herbal Medicine and apprenticed with her teacher, Coreypine Shane, in 2012. She continued on with the school's 400 hour Advanced Clinical Program in 2013 and now sees clients for holistic health consultations, teaches, and lives a simple, earth-based existence with her partner, Alex, on the land of Ardea.
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Alexander Meander is a self-proclaimed feral homesteader and advocate of Wild Nature. He and his partner Stacey live at Ardea, sixty acres of forest and field in the foothills of the Southern Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina. Here they forage and wildcraft, grow nutritious food and medicine, raise animals for eggs and meat, and plant a lot of trees. They also teach classes and host community gatherings here. All of their work is done with the primary goal of fostering a mutually beneficial relationship with the land that they call Ardea.

Alex is (mostly) self-taught on a wide range of topics that, collectively, tend human biology through ecological stewardship. This journey officially began with a four year stay in 2006 as a staff member at the Sequatchie Valley Institute in Whitwell, TN, a non-profit dedicated to providing research and education on sustainable living. Alex spent 2011 at the Blue Ridge School of Herbal Medicine in Weaverville, NC as an apprentice to Coreypine Shane, after which he became a certified Holistic Herbalist with over 800 hours of study. In the winter of 2012-13, he acquired his Permaculture Design Certificate with Permaculture in Action at Earthaven Ecovillage in Black Mountain, NC.

Alex has been on innumerable plant walks led by regionally respected herbalists and botanists, such as Juliet Blankespoor, Frank Cook, Marc Williams, 7song, and Luke Learningdeer. In the winter of 2014 he was chosen to be a content editor for the book Ancestral Plants, Volume II, written by Arthur Haines.

He teaches what he knows through various outdoor classes and nature walks which elucidate the importance of the natural world, and demonstrate proper identification, harvesting, and preparation of wild foods and medicines.