Homesteading 101: Connection To Place
About the Series:
Join us for an intimate and inspiring workshop series spanning the course of 3 months on a 5-acre homestead in Boulder, where we will explore what it truly means to live more connected to the natural world around us. Though the land is sizeable, the actual space where we will demonstrate these ancient practices is a mere 1/4 acre. Our intention for this series is to make living off the land accessible, no matter your experience level, land access, or resources. You’ll learn actionable practices that you can start to implement in your life right away. Get ready to get your hands dirty and your inspiration flowing.
The goal of this series is to share our experiences, providing you with an accessible entry point into living off the land in some tangible way. We aim to plant a seed of inspiration that may grow over your lifetime. There will be something for everyone, whether you are drawn to
Foraging wild food and medicine.
Learning how to DIY projects with reclaimed materials.
Assessing your land and building your homestead from the ground up.
Preserving your garden harvest or fresh farmers market tomatoes and peaches at peak ripeness.
Basic permaculture principals as a way to understand the needs and possibilities of your land.
Or raising a few chickens for fresh daily eggs while making top-quality compost for your garden.
This is an overview of general homesteading practices with a focus on helping you find your way, doing what makes sense for your specific situation. We’ll offer a taste (both literally and figuratively) of what it means to share a sacred connection to the land and natural world around us, going right to the source when it comes to nourishing ourselves and our community.
Homesteading isn’t something we do out of fear or concern for a bleak future; rather, we focus on the simple things in life that just make sense. The more we connect to ourselves and the beauty that nature has to offer, the more we find our life slowly shifts in ways that support not only our own well-being but those around us. While we recognize that the current paradigm and system we are part of is not sustainable and has wreaked havoc on our environment, we don’t want to impart guilt on those that do not know and rather inspire people to start making micro changes today, changes that will slowly ripple out over time.
Through years of intimately getting to know the local flora and fauna, crafting our own wild medicines, and foraging for wild edibles, through the practice of growing food that thrives in a dry mountain climate, we have come to see that there are so many access points for people to commune with nature. Instead of getting bogged down with superfoods this and exotic medicines that, we have found there is a great reciprocal relationship to learning about the plants around us and working with what wants to grow here, rather than forcing or imposing our own desires on the land, we have fallen deeply in love with what is HERE NOW.
This way of living can also be much more affordable as we start to make the shift from consumer to creator. Not to mention, it’s way more fun and fulfilling :)
How It Works
Every month you’ll join a small group of people on our new homestead to learn about a variety of homesteading topics and have hands on experience. We will explore different themes based on what is available in each season, assessing the current needs of our homestead, and you’ll learn skills that you can immediately apply to your own adventures. We are currently in the process of moving our current homestead to a new piece of land and thus have different examples to share, both a clean slate and an established setup.
During the three main workshops we will do things such as; walk the land, observe and listen, learn how to assess nature’s patterns and work with what you have. We’ll talk about a variety of different compost setups, and learn how to build simple composting systems with reclaimed and affordable materials. You’ll learn about medicine making, how to safely identify wild plants in your own backyard and how to turn them into healing tinctures, oils and more. While growing food specifically isn’t the main focus of these workshops, we’ll talk about different ways to build out garden beds and work with the soil that you have. You’ll learn simple methods for preserving food and ways to cut back on your food bill. You’ll learn about raising animals in small spaces, including different options for building housing and fencing to keep your new friends safe. We will also have a portion of the workshop where you will envision your homestead, where you’ll write about and draw out a plan for either your current space, or to imagine your ideal one.
We will have two additional 90 minute workshops, one will be a foraging walk where we will meet on trails around the Boulder area and learn about the local flora and fauna, picking and eating as we go. One workshop we will learn all about fermentation and you’ll walk away with your own wild crafted medicines as well as fermented veggies to enjoy. We will make sure that everyone can attend the foraging walk, so if the current date doesn’t work, we will arrange an extra walk for those that couldn’t make the first.
“Yosh and Aja are of the magic sort, weaving culture in community through sourdough and breaking bread. An active and tactile learning environment, the class was collaborative. And then we gathered around a table of many fermented jewels- kraut, cured meats, cultured butter and cheese, the brilliant yellow of preserved lemons, garlic honey…if you believe me I could continue. And isn’t this the true culturing? Living wisdom of the ancestral roots of food. Chickens in the backyard and conversations about spring water as sacred. The background music is connection and laughter. It’s with full hearted gratitude that I found these two beautiful people breathing life into human relationship with food.”
-Jess Walters
What’s included:
Three 3 hour immersive workshops on our homestead.
Two 90 minute workshops. One foraging walk and a fermentation workshop.
PDF with a homesteading guide and our favorite local resources.
Copy of Yoshua’s most recent book: “Fermenting With Your Best Friend”
Closed Group to ask questions/post pictures/share resources.
Homemade wild medicine tincture, homemade wild herbal oil, jar of fermented veggies and jar of preserved fruit.
*There are only ten slots to keep the classes intimate. If you have any questions feel free to email us at aja@ajarose.love
When:
Sundays 2-5pm for the main workshops
May 19th
June 23rdth
July 14th
Additional 90 minute workshops:
Wednesdays 530-7pm
June 5th Foraging Walk
July 17th Fermentation Workshop
*If you can’t make one of the classes please let us know as we are offering extra dates for those that can’t make one of the longer sessions.
Cost:
$450 per person
We are offering a couples/two person discount for $100 off the total.
Once you sign up we will send a welcome email with all of the details including actual location.
If you’d like a payment plan option or want to reserver your space with a deposit please email Aja at aja@ajarose.love
*Cancellation/Refund Policy. If for some reason you are not able to make the series and let us know one month in advance, you will get a full refund, after that it is non-refundable, however you’d be able to transfer your place to another person. Also, if we sell out and someone on the waiting list wants your ticket, we can do our best to make that happen.
About Yoshua and Aja:
Yoshua Greenfield has been foraging for food for over 15 years, engaged in homesteading for 8 years, and cooking ever since his mom told him, “If you don’t like my cooking, then do it yourself!” He carries a deep passion for teaching others to find inspiring and simple ways to deepen their connection to the things they consume. As a lover of all things nature, he spends much of his time tending to various foods and animals around our home, hiking barefoot in the woods while foraging for medicinal and edible plants, and fermenting and preserving just about everything under the sun. For 7 years, he hosted an alternative cooking show that attracted millions of viewers but eventually left that world behind to focus on connecting with place and community, using food as a vehicle for inspiration, connection, growth, and well-being.
Aja Rose has spent many years in the health and wellness space and has dedicated the past 4 years to diving deep into herbal medicine, wild foraging, and gardening. She is deeply passionate about connecting with the ‘medicine of place’ and forming reciprocal relationships with the spirits of the plants and trees we feel naturally drawn to. Some of her dearest plant allies are Pine, Yarrow, and Rose. Currently, she is most inspired by planting and working with native plants to support local ecosystems. She also loves anything related to food, especially anything she grows or buys locally.
Collectively, we have been tending to the land together for nearly four years, recently welcomed our first child, and hold a deep reverence for the sacred land we inhabit (but never truly own). We have discovered that the magic lies in the mundane, the medicine in our connection to place, and the sacred joy and profound peace that comes from being in a state of deep reverence, in a place of careful listening. After noticing how many people in and around Boulder have been feeling deeply burnt out by what we call “the healing trap”—a never-ending cycle of always looking inward to find more things wrong with ourselves to “improve”—we sensed a growing desire of more people wanting to learn practical skills that are inherently healing. We like to say that healing always happens when we are present when we listen. In this way, as we move away from the self-obsessed culture of trying to constantly heal things we were told were wrong, we begin to give back, to engage in actions that support not only ourselves but also the people and land around us.
Location:
10 minutes from downtown Boulder, this 5-acre farm property nestled against the foothills is a collaborative project with a friend and has a long-term vision for raising animals, growing food, fermenting/preservation, community farm dinners, sacred rest retreats, kid sanctuary, and overall living classroom for how we can live more harmoniously with this sacred land. You will have the opportunity to see it in its beginning stages and hopefully be apart of our community for many years to come!
Register:
Once you sign up we will send a welcome email with all of the details including actual location.
If you’d like a payment plan option please email Aja at aja@ajarose.love.
We are offering a couples/two person discount for $100 off.