I’d heard of Nicole Masters within weeks of starting work with Mid Lachlan Landcare but it took me a little over a year to fully grasp the impact she’s made on our Landcare community. For the Love of Soil is a truly marvelous book, filled with case study notes, personal anecdotes, digestive metaphores and practical hints and tips as to how best to learn about and fall in love with the soil you live on and manage. I literally couldn’t put the book down, or rather I could only put it down to grab a spade in order to go get a closer look at what she was talking about!

While this book did contain a fair bit of science-chatter, it wasn’t heavy going which I both loved (made reading the book easy) and found intriguing – I wanted to find out more! Indeed, the book inspired me to do some further reading and note-taking which then got transformed into the little summary presentation below.

After saying that Nicole did a great job of keeping the book fast-paced, relatable and whole-minded, I”m a chemist and couldn’t help but take a slightly deviation down a chemically-rich rabbit hole. In doing that I realised just how my life has come full-circle.

I took up this job with Landcare as part of a much-needed lifestyle-shift after years of hustling in the corporate work as a consultant csmetic chemist. While writing notes on the polysaccharides in biological soil crusts (soil skin), I realised this was the same chemistry (and same chemicals) that I researched and taught about as a cosmetic chemist – how our skin regulates moisture, the difference between hydration and moisturisation, the immune boosting, soothing and anti-ageing role polysaccharides play in healthy skin.

To summarise, Nicole’s book is a must-read for anyone wanting to deepen their understanding of both themselves and this little patch of the universe we call home.

From skin to soil and soil to skin…