A friend once described me as a redneck hippie with a Ph.D., and that sums me up nicely.
I live about 12 miles from Florence, SC, on a 130-acre homestead that my wife and I carved out of the lowcountry woods. I adore animals and have cats, a dog, goats, beehives, and chickens running around. I am an avid gardener, homesteader, hunter, and fisherman, and have a vineyard (I make many gallons of wine each year), two huge gardens, acres of woods and fields, and two ponds.
I am a traditional artist (working in a variety of media), carpenter, construction worker, cook, and amateur musician, and I practice primitive arts such as bow-and-drill firemaking and survival crafts. I create Native American-style arrowheads, knives, and spearheads from flint, obsidian, glass, toilet porcelain, and other materials. I grow, cure, and process gourds into various containers, and make cordage from wild plant fibers, animal sinew, and rawhide. I manufacture and shoot arrows made from locally-collected turkey feathers, river cane, pine pitch glue, and the arrowheads I create.
I Iive off the land as much as possible and am a nature freak!
Me and Molly, (above)
my rough-and-tumble yellow lab that accompanies me on all of my outdoor adventures.
This picture was taken in February 2010, after a late winter snowstorm (unusual
for this area).
My favorite pasttime (above):
alligator sitting. Me and Hank, a live (and large) alligator at the St.
Augustine Alligator Farm, Florida. During my career, I have worked up close and
personal with alligators and all sorts of other critters.
Me with a corn snake (above),
July 2003. When this photo was taken, I had a cast on my broken left arm (hidden
from the frame). Nothing can keep me away from the wildlife!
I was born on September
23, 1970-something in upstate NY. Apparently my mother was keen on the fashion
of the 70's, as indicated in this photo of me and my sister (below) The
picture was taken in 1976 -- I am on the right. I grew up in a rural
setting and spent most of my free time exploring the woods, playing with my
dog, and working around the yard and garden. I am guessing from the height of
the corn plants in this photo (below) that it was mid-to-late July. [You
know someone was raised in the country when they tell the date by the height
of the corn!] My mom and dad are
shown in this recent photo (below), in front of one of my mother's flower
beds. My mother has something in common with the Hulk: that is, she has a very
green thumb... Believe it or not, I started teaching
when I was an early teenager; this is me teaching an art class to elementary
school students, when I was in high school (below). I also taught nature
and art classes as an undergraduate in college (at the State University of New
York, in Oswego). During the summers I worked as a naturalist and educator for
The Nature Conservancy. In this photo (below), I am posing with
some of my interns. As part of my job, I supervised interns from New York City
for several weeks at a time, during which period we worked at several nature
preserves and camped out. Before I went to graduate
school in Florida, I met the love of my life, Tamatha Barbeau. We both
entered grad school at the University of Florida to pursue our Master's degrees
and Ph.D.s. We got married in 1997 on a nature trail outside of Gainesville,
FL. In this picture (below), we are dancing and enjoying live jazz in
New Orleans. Currently, I spend
my work week teaching as an Associate Professor at Francis
Marion University, SC. I also conduct scientific research, write and publish
scientific articles, and hang out (see below). To find out more about
my accomplishments in life, check out my Curriculum
Vitae, Research, and Artwork
webpages. Written
by Greg Pryor, 2010. This web site is for educational purposes; if you have
comments, corrections, or suggestions, please contact
me.
