Some health care professionals choose to leave their practice so they can farm full-time. Catherine Bonner has decided to both.

Her place deep in Llano County near Valley Spring is home to both the Bonner Farm and the Bluebonnet Wellness Center, LLC. In between meeting with clients as a licensed chiropractor, acupuncturist and nutritionist, Bonner works tirelessly to restore the land as a place to raise animals and grow crops. To her the two passions go hand-in-hand.

"As a health care practitioner, I work with the patient to investigate the root cause of things. We look at how the body functions and work to nip disease in the bud," she said. "We look at the land the same way, to improve it by making the soil healthier, which makes for healthier plants and healthier animals."

Bonner started the farm with her late husband, Dwight Bonner, who passed away in February of 2009. After his death, Catherine carried on with plans they had made and immersed herself in the study of her land -- what was wrong with it and how to make it better. The land had been vacant for three years when the Bonners bought it and before that it had supported a goat operation. Prior to that it had been a cotton and peanut farm.

The education process began with a course in land management at Holistic Management International (HMI), which is based in Texas and works with farmers and ranchers to improve the health and productivity of their land. Bonner was relatively new to Texas, and so she sought the advice and counsel of people who knew all about the peculiarities of Hill Country soil and land. Jerry Turrentine, a retired biologist with NRCS (National Resources Conservation Service) taught her about the land's botany. NRCS soil scientists Wayne Gabriel and Phillip Wright helped her determine what the soil had and what it needed. Since then, Bonner has begun to put into practice what she has learned.

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