NANCY KNIGHT

Nancy Knight is a freelance graphic designer and writer. She and her wife of 30 years live on a farm in Western New York, where they are bossed around by one very spoiled dog, two ornery but adorable goats, about 23 chickens (give or take a few), three demanding but loving barn cats, and by the ongoing threat of Nature trying to reclaim her 53 acres of pasture and forest.

This never-ending battle makes Nancy an expert with a chainsaw and a blade-spinning weed whacker, so try not to anger her. With no men around to take the wheel of the tractor or the handle of the cordless drill, both women have figured out many farm chores on their own, like how to attach all three points of the 300-pound brush hog to the back of the Kubota without the benefit of testosterone or mansplaining. (Hint: Archimedes was right when he said you can move just about anything with a wedge and a lever.)

In what little time she has left over, Nancy loves to paint in acrylics, hike in the woods, and scuba dive in the ocean. She’s also recently completed a sappy, tawdry romance novel for which she’s trying desperately to find a publisher. You can see her professional work at www.knightimedesigns.com.