3 months of living and learning on the land
Seeking 3 apprentices for June 15 – Sept. 15, 2024
Learn earth skills in a delightful community with good food, live music, and a sense of humor.
- Do you long to live in deep relationship with the land like your ancestors?
- Are you ready to put your hands into the cycle of life, and participate in the creation of your own sustenance?
- Is it time for you to learn the sacred traditions of growing, foraging and preserving food?
- Are you interested in learning how to work with plants and fungi for healing?
- Are you a knowledge carrier ready to apply your skills on the land?
This is a special opportunity to take Permaculture out of the classroom and into real life!
Learn with Terri Wilde, an Earth Apprentice, Permaculturalist, Gardener, Herbalist and Forager with 35+ years of hands-on experience.
In this program, you will:
- • Camp and live in community on Dandelion Hearth Farm, in the heart of the North Cascades’s Skagit River Valley (Western Washington)
- • Be engaged for 4 days a week with Instruction, Hands-On projects, Field Trips & Work Exchange
- • Spend the rest of your time exploring the beautiful North Cascades, relaxing in nature, working part time or deepening your studies
- • Learn to apply Permaculture principles to real life Earth Care!
- • Practice deep observation, getting to know the plants and animals of place through seasons and successions.
- • Learn to read the land, water, weather and life for guidance toward good stewardship.
Program Cost:
This program is being offered for $550/month plus 10 hours/week in work exchange
The cost includes Camping, Food, and Hands-On Regenerative Practice Classes
Curricula Highlights:
Permaculture Practices, Sense of Place, Botany, Gardening/ Farming, Food Preservation, Foraging, Mycology, Herbal Medicine, Energy Flows, Animal Husbandry, Homestead Skills and More!!
We will camp and live in community on Dandelion Hearth Farm in the heart of the North Cascades’s Skagit River Valley in western WA. Dandelion Hearth Farm acknowledges that we are living on and stewarding the ancestral homelands of the Upper Skagit Coast Salish Peoples, Sabelxu band of the Upper Skagit. and honor with gratitude the land itself and the Upper Skagit Tribe.
Apprentices will be engaged for 4 days a week with Intensive instruction, hands on projects, field trips and work exchange. The other 3 days, students are free to explore the beautiful North Cascades, relax in nature, work part time or deepen their studies.
The program includes Camping (we have some structures and gear), Food, Field Trips, and Regenerative Class instruction with hands on projects.
It is being offered for a reasonable $550/month toward costs, plus 10 hours a week work exchange (40 hours a month).
We are a delightful community with good food, live music, and a sense of humor.
2024 Regenerative Earth Apprenticeship Program Curricula
Sense of Place
Observation Senses and skills, Orientation to this land where we are now and where you are from and how to see “place”, Take the quiz, Plant walk/ tour
Botany
Plant Parts and habits, Plant Families, How to get to know plants/ making friends, Plant reproduction strategies
Gardening/Farming: Soil enhancing practices, no til gardening,
Annual and Perennial garden systems, Food Forests, Plant Guilds, Garden Design, selective weeding, Edible weeds, Mulching, Pruning, Harvesting etc.
Seed Saving
Gardening to save seed, Hybrid vs. Open Pollinated, Selection, Population and Isolation needs, Readiness and collection, Processing and Storing
Energy Flows through the land:
Water: Hugelberm Swales, Pond Building and care, Flows, Conservation, Water Catchment, Grey Water
Compost : Kitchen and garden compost, composting in situ, Humanure, Liquid Gold
Foraging
Plant walks, Native plants, Succession, Edible and Medicinal uses of plants, Reciprocity… propagation/ gifting, Four caveats: plant permission/ population health, contamination concerns, Identification and trying small amounts first, Greens, roots, flowers, fruits and berries, Harvesting, cooking, processing, preserving
Food Preservation
Drying, Canning, Fermentation: water kefir, sauerkraut, pickles, Cold Storage, Freezing, Salting, Smoking, Burying
Acorns
Gather, dry, store, process, cook, eat, plant
Mushrooms
Identification, Ecology, Edible: finding, harvesting, cooking, drying, freezing, canning, Medicinal Mushrooms, Teas, Double extractions
Food/ Nutrition
Genetically Modified Organisms in the Food Supply, Nutrition, Food management/ rotation/ storage/ cooking strategies/ emergency supply, Wheat grown in the US
Herbalism
Theory, Schools of Herbalism, Plant Identification/ resources/ managing wild populations, harvesting, processing, preserving, storing
Herbal Medicine Making
Food, Teas (Infusions, Decoctions), Tinctures, Double Extractions, Salves, Poultices, Syrups, Salts…
Phenology the changing timing of biological phenomena
Conservation
Hacks: Sweaters, tea pots, straw boxes, heat smaller spaces, insulation, cooking with wood, dishwater from wood stove, Earth Etiquette
Permaculture
Ethics, Principles, Guilds, zones, stacking functions, building soil, restoration work, invasive plant abatement, perennials, succession, ecology, edge strategies, bio-remediation, Connectedness: soil, forests, bodies, each other
Animal Husbandry
Dogs, Chickens
Homestead Skills
Fire building, wood processing (cutting, bucking, splitting, stacking, storing, drying, kindling, woodstove use, ashes..), Scything, Weather reading, rocket stove and solar oven cooking, catching, slaughtering, butchering chickens, stocking and rotating food, How to tell if food is good or bad
Peening a scythe
Daily Class time will include:
Check-ins and morning openers
Instruction Time
Field trips
Hands-on
Research projects
Presentations with visuals and stories
Games
Earth Apprenticeship 2024
June 15- Sept. 15, 2024 (3 months)
Exchange:
$550/ month plus 10 hours a week work (40 hours a month)
Includes: Instruction, hands on activities, field trips, meals, camping space, utilities
(Money for food. Work exchange for instruction preparation.)
Requirements: A Permaculture Design Certificate and/ or previous gardening or applicable experience or teacher permission
Expectations:
Apprentices are expected to be self-motivated, hard working, with intentions to apply their learnings during their life paths.
They shall be responsible for collective cooking shifts, and responsible for cleaning up after, and caring for, themselves.
We foster open communication and urge participants, using non-violent communication, to promptly address issues of concern.
Apprentices are expected to track, write down and complete all work exchange hours with diligence.
We treasure learning together and appreciate the sharing of knowledge and skills apprentices bring with them.
We maintain a culture of respect for the earth and each other, our needs and our differences.
To be signed:
Memorandum of Understanding
Liability release form
Objectives of the Course are:
*To enhance our ability to live in harmony with the Web of Life on Earth, through observation, reciprocity and careful stewardship.
*To explore healthy ways to receive our needs and revitalize ecosystems for future abundance.
*To practice living in community sharing knowledge, food, chores, company, music and fun together.
*Learn how to grow, find, harvest, prepare and preserve our own food.
*To be a part of the paradigm shift to a sustainable future.
(opens in a new tab)https://www.vivaculture.org/wp/permaculture-design-live-consultation/https://www.vivaculture.org/wp/permaculture-design-live-consultation/https://www.vivaculture.org/wp/permaculture-design-live-consultation/
Regenerative Earth Apprenticeship Program and Vivaculture Institute founder and educator, Terri Wilde Compost,is an avid Earth Care practitioner. She has been studying, practicing, working and teaching about native plants, edible weeds, permaculture, foraging, composting, organic gardening and herbal medicine for 40 years.
Email wildefoods@yahoo.com for a full resume.