Come tour Momma Wendy’s second skoolie conversion. Discussion about the process and legalities of converting a bus to be a fully functioning off grid living space and the realities of living and traveling this way. Solar setups, registration, bus options, boon docking, finding places to park, preparedness on the road, community of nomadic people, other vehicle setups (which she has also done).

Learn a historic way to weave bands and belts with historic evidence in the Roman Nordic history. Once originally made pod bone, wood or bronze, we will be working with a more modern version made of wood.  

Through this practice you will learn the basics of creating a weave and warping through a loom, which will enable you to move on to more complex patterns and looms.  

What is a prepper? Did you know most of you actually already are? 

What is an EDC or everyday carry? Do you have a preparedness plan for your family or know where to find the information needed in an emergency? 

Especially after the experience many of this community had durning Helene, or uncertainties of the world coming up. Wendy would love to share with you a non fear based way to think about and put into action a preparedness plan for your family. 

Every day carry, get home bags, car kits, important documents binders all discussed.

Weaving fibers to make rugs is a traditional craft. Did you know rugs were sometimes even used on a bed for warmth? Or to insulate a drafty home in the winter? But not many of us have room for an entire loom in our spaces. In this class we will each build a small frame loom, and create sit mats out of different fabrics. 

This technique is a variation of the nail binding that uses a needle to create a tight stitch in your rag rug. Also sometimes referred to as the toothbrush rag rug.

We will go through the story of rag rugs and this has purposes in different cultures in history, their relations to basket weaves, and types of materials that were traditionally used, verses how we can create them now with upcycled fabrics.

Most of us have had experience tie dying, maybe you have even dyed fabrics in an indigo vat before. But there are so many more ways to create patterns in your fabrics!We will. Discuss the different techniques of folding, tying, stitching and clamping from the traditional Japanese methods called Shibori. And then use indigo to create beautiful rich blue colors. Evidence of indigo has been found in most primitive cultures around the world! What a great way to connect to the creativity of our ancestors.

Little things with no place to store them? Messy shelves that need some order? Learn a useful traditional skill that will also help organize and beautify your life!

The history of basket weaving is one of the oldest primitive skills documented. Baskets were used to carry and store items, as well as to carry water and cook food out of! Hear the stories and history as you make your own basket.

We will be working together to each create a traditional flat bottom woven basket out of rattan reeds. Learn and walk away with your own handcrafted basket to hold all of your treasures in.

There are so many beautiful ceremonies for young ladies coming of age. But what about the next phase? There are so many of us going through the next biggest transition of our lives and feel a bit lost and unsupported through it.

This will be a time when, all of us about to enter, currently experiencing or have already passed through to the other side, to come together. Open discussion based, with all of us gathering to feel supported and held. To share what we have been experiencing and what has been working (or not working) to deal with our biggest feelings and symptoms. A place of no judgements, to share openly and to learn from each other.

This will be a closed container discussion so everyone involved can feel empowered to share their truths. Please respect that and arrive in a timely manner. 

Although this should be a discussion with the community as a whole, so everyone can have a better understanding and therefore support our community through all of their transitions, we respectfully request understanding, although we welcome all to our community and hearts, that this will be a womb carriers only circle at this time.

This class is going to be really fat! And fats have been traditionally been a staple in food preservation and cooking. They can be made shelf stable in a process called rendering. Which simply means to remove the water. Together we are going to talk about the different types of fats, which animal makes what sort of fats, which cuts have the best fats, and their different uses. Then we are going to render our own lard from pork. Preferring classes where everyone can make and take, everyone will go home with some rendered lard for their own use!

In this class we will go through a variety of food preservation techniques and the tools you need to do each. This will be an introductory class to get you familiar with the tools you do, and do not need, since each process can be many classes long about all the different recipes and methods.

Some of the techniques we will discuss and cover: solar and machine dehydrations, smoke house (or box), water bath canning, pressure canning, lacto-fermenting, meads, vinegars, tinctures, brining or pickling. Whew. And there are still more!

The purpose of this class is to give ideas of when each techniques are best used and for what foods, and dispel some of the fears and pressure surrounding learning how to do these things.  

Bring your questions and ideas, spoons and cups. There will be tastings!

“The art of bookbinding tells the story of human ingenuity and a commitment to preserving ideas” (universalbookbinding.com)

Book binding as a technique dates back to ancient times. And luckily in this class we are not going to create clay tablet manuscripts for. You to carry around. Instead, we will make journals using the long stitch method, which dates back to the Middle Ages in Europe. This technique is fantastic in making books that can lay flat when they are open. Perfect for however you want to use it!

There is so much research about the benefits of journaling. Being able to process emotion and events in your life through reflection, having clarity to your dreams, manifestation of your future, becoming a more efficient writer, working on your observation skills, and is the best way for us to actively record history. 

We will discuss different journaling techniques and benefits of each and will have some journaling prompts to distribute.

We will talk about gut bioms and how they are often not given the respect they deserve in keeping the rest of our bodies healthy. Stories of cultural uses and production and the world. Together we are going to start our own apple cider vinegar mother to take home! And then diving in to what is fire cider and how to make it and make our own to take home. Two yummys to share with others! 

Wendy has been making her own vinegars, meads, kombuchas, krauts and other naturally fermented foods for well over a decade now. Only recently has she begun learning to use packaged yeasts.. Ask about the exploding volcano mead. Sigh. 

Vinegars and Fire ciders are a great way we can produce a good immune boosting medicine at home with ingredients we can grow. 

“Make your food your medicine, and your medicine your food”, Hippocrates 

Together we will work on a very tradtional Appalachian basket form referred to as the melon basket. These differ from the egg baskets that have the two humps reminding you that chickens really poop out of the same hole. Yup, really. 

We will be using wild pervasive vines that are found in nature. Discuss their possible difference in strength, flexibility, and usefulness. And explore to see which one you prefer to work with. The result will be a good time and basket to carry your things in.  

Mushrooms, one of the foundations of the food forest that is often not as well known especially when it comes to its amazing possibilities of flavor, medicine and cultivation. In this workshop we will focus on a great beginner standard, the oyster mushroom. Learning about the many different varieties, medicinal uses and preparation techniques, and cooking suggestions. Then we will together each get to inoculate our own log with mushroom spawn to take home.

Mushrooms, one of the foundations of the food forest, especially when it comes to its amazing possibilities of flavor, medicine and cultivation. In this workshop we will focus on a great beginner standard, the oyster mushroom.

We will discuss off grid options for sterilization or pasteurization of materials and cultivation. Thinking outside of the box to possible substrate options. How to get your mycelium to go further (more bang for your buck) and using what you have to grow a yummy and nutritious food source. Each person will take home their own inoculated bucket of mushrooms to harvest at home.  

There is so much research about how connecting your bare feet to the earth can have mental and physical benefits. In this work shop we will tear off our shoes and practice awareness of how we walk. Learning the traditional ways of the indigonous peoples and how they moved.  

Overheard a debate if Momma Wendy ever owned shoes. Learn what grounding is, how it can benefit your health and where to start. Together we will practice being barefoot and connection to the powers it can provide.  

There is so much research about how connecting your bare feet to the earth can have mental and physical benefits. In this work shop we will tear off our shoes and practice awareness of how we walk. Overheard a debate if Momma Wendy ever owned shoes. Learn what grounding is, how it can benefit your health and where to start. Together we will practice being barefoot and connection to the powers it can provide.  

There is a long tradition of Mead making as a way to preserve the harvest or a memory. To ferment and cleanse liquids to be safe for travel. To celebrate and honor the bees that we depend on so desperately and supporting the hive’s keepers who tend to them. And about the suito secret circles, ceremonies amongst friends in the dark, which celebrate the many moments of life as they share the liquids created along the way.

In this class we will discuss the etiquette of mead circles. Then we will talk about the traditional and historic wild ways of creating mead with the yeasts all around us; how to collect and save these yeasts, and even make a mead of our own!

Please bring a small empty cup, clean hands, and water to drink for class. 

Sharing is caring expect for germs.

Don’t touch the thing to the thing. That’s how things happen!

Materials fee includes samples to taste, ingredients and materials to make make a mead each participant will go home with their own bottle of started mead! 

So you went ahead and got some chickens. Or maybe your neighbor down the road does. But what do you do when they start piling up? How do you preserve them for the times of year the chickens molt and are not laying? 

This class we will go over the amazing packaging that eggs come in, how to use that to our benefit, how long can you keep them without using the fridge (and why that is possible), what is water glassing, water bath canning and pressure canning of them. Together we will make some pickled eggs and can them to take home.  

We will cover some basic skin soothing herbs and create our own salve that everyone can take home with them! You will leave with a basic formula that you can use to make just about any salve. And knowledge of some easily recognizable plants that have some wonderful healing capabilities.

Please let me know if you have any known allergies to herbs so we can avoid them. 

Evidence of pack basket usage dates back to 900 AC. Come learn about and create your own smaller pack basket to be a part of this long standing tradtional craft.

Traditionally made of ash bark, we will be using a more modern rattan reed.  

Used all around the world, each culture had different styles and purposes for their pack baskets. We will be doing the Adirondack style. Which was made popular by the adaptations of the French settlers from the indigenous peoples.  

Evidence of pack basket usage dates back to 900 AC. Come learn about and create your own smaller pack basket to be a part of this long standing tradtional craft.

Traditionally made of ash bark, we will be using pervasive vines instead.

Used all around the world, each culture had different styles and purposes for their pack baskets. We will be doing the Adirondack style. Which was made popular by the adaptations of the French settlers from the indigenous peoples.  

Baskets were an important craft and skill throughout time around the world. They were used to carry things, to store things, and just to look beautiful… 

This classs we will use a very traditional material of the region, long leaf pine needles, to learn basic stitches and ways of bind together to each make a small basket. While working we can have discussions of the history and peoples these skills come from, how to honor our ancestors (and all those who came before, relations or not), gathering materials ethically, and other related topics the group seems fit.  

Everyone prides themselves in their handmade spoons and bowls. But when it comes to whipping up those farm fresh eggs for an omelet, what do you use? Come learn a fun way to make your own whisk! 

This tree has a rich history dating back to 10,700 BC!! Their cultivation starting over 7,000 years ago. Come learn the reason why so many primitive groups treasured this tree. Explore its uses in the furniture and wood carving field, make medicine and dye with its hulls, and eat the nuts. Understand why the Greeks would associate this tree with wisdom and other Europeans would associate it with mysticism and witches. May we all that wise in learning the foods and medicines all around us.  

Not everyone excels or is comfortable learning to make fire with bow drill or friction. But there are lots of ways that you can still be successful at making fire using everyday items you have laying around your home. Come harness the power of fire, making a number of different fire starters to take home with you.