Howdy! I’m Brandy and I am a kid that never stopped asking “What’s that?”

I was adopted as a baby by Francis O and Willie H Stanley… or Aunt Fid and Uncle Bill if you ask anyone who knew them. My mom was born in 1915 in Lone Oak, Oklahoma. The middle child of seven. My grandparents were sharecroppers growing cotton in southwest Oklahoma at the time of the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression. My great-grandmother was a Granny Woman and was renowned in the area for her skills at everything from preemies to treatments for the “wasting disease” that we now recognize as diabetes.

I remember being a small child carried around on a hip and having a tasty berry, nut, or leaf handed to me to try. Growing up we’d be on road trips to my aunt’s houses in far southeast Texas and playing the “I spy with my little eye….” game, spotting plants growing on the side of the road. Every plant we saw had a name, use and story to tell.

I’m just continuing the tradition. I tell stories of my grandparents Walter C (papa) and Dolly (grandmama), of my great-grandmother Nancy Ann Francis, and my great-great-grandmother Amanda who walked the Trail of Tears from Tennessee with a mule.

This is my heart and blood and bone. Our little legacy of knowing the plants around us, how they’re used, and the little stories that went with them. And I just never stopped asking what they were as my world grew. I have the weirdest life goal of anybody you’ll ever meet. I want that knowledge about every plant I see in Texas…. whether in cultivation or not. I like to know every bird I hear. I’m the kid who never stopped asking “What’s that”… just grew up.

So some friends of mine thought it was cool that I could do this every time we went anywhere. Other people started saying “You should market your knowledge” and so… here we are. I can’t help but do this. I gathered this knowledge because I love it. After all, it’s who I am. And it doesn’t do any good just gathering dust in my head. I love to teach and having someone listen to my stories is heaven.

So let’s go on a little meander and meet the flowers and trees along the way.