The Dirt Under My Nails Has a Story
How Getting Dirty with Glenn came to be — and why it might be exactly what you’ve been looking for
Let me tell you something about dirt. Real dirt. The kind that gets under your fingernails on a Tuesday morning in April when the ground is still cold and your knees ache a little and you’re on your hands and knees dividing perennials for a client who’s been with you for twenty years. That dirt doesn’t lie. It doesn’t care what your bank account looks like, what your inbox says, or how good or bad last year was. It just asks you to show up, pay attention, and do the work.
I’ve been showing up for that dirt for forty-five years.
My name is Glenn Rieker. I have a degree in Landscape Architecture and I’ve spent the last four and a half decades doing what most people only dream about — designing, building, and maintaining some of the most beautiful large residential gardens in Northeast Pennsylvania and for the last 18 years, southeast Wisconsin. We’re not talking about planting a few annuals and calling it a day. We’re talking about spaces that took years to develop, that have their own personality, their own seasonal rhythms, and that people actually live differently inside of. That work shaped the way I see everything — proportion, texture, how light moves through a space, why some outdoor environments make you exhale the second you walk into them and others just don’t. It turns out that training follows you everywhere. You “look” at landscaping, but you Experience a Garden….
I live outside of Grafton, Wisconsin on thirteen acres where the nearest neighbor is far enough away that the loudest things on most mornings are sandhill cranes arguing about something in the field, a bald eagle working the tree line, or a small herd of deer deciding my yard is their yard. It’s not a bad commute to the rest of the world, and honestly, it’s the kind of quiet that recalibrates you. I ride my bike before the sun fully decides to commit to the day, I kayak rivers that most people drive past without a second thought, and when a destination trail or a good stretch of water calls my name, I load up NoNáme — my 2025 Ram Promaster 3500 — and head out.
NoNáme isn’t a $150,000 Instagram-ready camper van with a walnut kitchen and a roof deck. That’s not the point and honestly, that was never the appeal. What I’m building instead is what I call a no-build build — a modular cargo system that gives me exactly what I need and nothing I don’t. A place to sleep. Everything I need to eat outdoors. Enough organized space to carry my Jackson Kayak Mayfly and my Aventon 3.0 M Series fat bike to wherever we’re going. NoNáme is a metal tent on wheels, and I mean that as the highest possible compliment. The goal was never the van. The goal is always what’s outside of it in the morning.
And when I get there — wherever there happens to be — I bring cameras. A Nikon for the shots that need that ground-level human eye. A 360 camera that captures interactive photos you can actually step inside of when you view them. And a drone, because I’m an FAA Part 107 certified sUAS pilot and there is simply no better argument for getting outside than seeing the world from two hundred feet up on a clear morning. The perspective changes everything. A bike trail that feels like a good ride from the saddle becomes something completely different from the air — the way it ribbons through the trees, the way it follows a creek, the way it connects one small Wisconsin town to another. I want you to see what I see. That’s the whole point of capturing it.
I’m not a twenty-something with a GoPro and a sponsorship. I’m a 70-year-old guy who has buried a wife, built a career from the ground up — literally — and figured out that the outdoors isn’t just a hobby. It’s medicine.
Three years ago, I lost Cheryl. Two years of lung cancer, and then she was gone. I won’t dress that up or make it tidy, because grief isn’t tidy. What I can tell you is what pulled me through. It wasn’t a therapist’s couch, although there’s nothing wrong with that. It was a bike trail at 5:30 in the morning. It was getting into a kayak when the water was still glassy and the rest of the world hadn’t started making noise yet. It was digging in the dirt with my hands on a cold spring morning and feeling something quietly remind me that things grow back. Things that looked completely dead come back.
That’s not a metaphor I invented. That’s just what gardens do. And if you’re 45 or older and you’ve had a few years that tried to knock you sideways — a loss, a health scare, a decade that somehow got away from you — you probably already know what I’m talking about.
Getting Dirty with Glenn exists because I got tired of outdoor content that wasn’t made for us. You know the stuff — beautiful, athletic, exhausting people doing things that make you feel like you missed some critical window about fifteen years ago. I’m not here for that. I’m here for the 52-year-old who wants to try kayaking but has no idea where to start. The 58-year-old woman who wants to camp alone for the first time and needs to know what gear is actually worth buying. The 67-year-old man who just retired and is staring at a weekend with nothing in it and feels a little lost.
I’ve got weekend trails for that guy. I’ve got gear recommendations that won’t waste your money. I’ve got day trips that’ll make you wonder why you didn’t start doing this years ago. And I’ve got the visual proof — drone footage, interactive 360 photos, ground-level photography — that shows you exactly what these places look and feel like before you ever load the car. No guessing, no vague descriptions. Just honest, beautiful documentation of places worth your time.
Living on thirteen acres teaches you something important — nature doesn’t perform for you. The eagles aren’t out there being majestic for anyone’s benefit. The cranes aren’t putting on a show. They’re just living, fully and without apology, in exactly the place they’re supposed to be. That’s the whole lesson, honestly. Get outside. Be where you are. Do it while you can.
This is the brand. This is the whole thing. No filters, no performance, no pretending the hard parts didn’t happen. Just a 70-year-old landscape architect, drone pilot, and van camper who found out the hard way that getting outside isn’t optional — it’s the thing that keeps you functional, curious, and grateful to still be here.
If that sounds like something you need right now, you’re in the right place.
Pull up a chair. We’re just getting started.
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