"There were literally thousands of carp milling about in the shallow waters, willows, and reeds along the lakeshore. With the early spring runoff this year, the reservoir was several feet higher than it would normally be by the beginning of June, flooding the mudflats with just enough water to turn it into Carp Mecca. It was every hunter-gatherers greatest dream. We were practically tripping over them as we waded around in the shallow waters! Hunter-gatherer bands often congregated to similar events, coming together at a central point and time to take advantage of an inexhaustible food supply. It would have been a time for celebration, feasting, and an opportunity to mingle and marry between bands."
Would you like to take a class from Green University® LLC, yet don't have the time to commit to an extended immersion experience? We host a limited number of dedicated workshops and intensive programs each year. The workshops and intensives are a great way to dive into a specific, focused skill area, such as animal processing, hide tanning, plant identification and foraging, or working with kids. Read about and register for these classes following the links below, or consider joining our immersion program. Immersion tuition covers admission to all classes concurrent with your stay. Scroll down the page for information on individual classes and adventures.
Upcoming Workshops, Classes, Intensives, and Adventures Join us for individual events, or sign up for a full semester! All classes and dates are approximate and subject to change.
Botany in a Day is a revolutionary approach in the way that way that you introduce the family concept for "non-botanists". I teach botany courses (identification, ecology, conservation, edible and medicinal uses, etc.) at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory near Crested Butte, Colorado. I've taught college students, biologists, land managers, and vacationers. I always try to take the family approach. I think it is a great way to organize the taxonomy of things in one's head instead of just learning about a bunch of plants. This is obviously an old system in the technical resources, but your use of it in a field guide is great.
In Participating in Nature, I particularly like the way you combine your philosophy in a journal style with discussion of specific skills. I also like very much how you emphasize those skills or variations on skills that you have adapted on your own. It is clear that you have spent much creative time in the woods. I have been very much an observer and student of the land in the past 10 years, but it has really only been in the past few years that I am becoming a participant. For example, I have a masters in botany with an emphasis in plant taxonomy. So it is now that I am going back and saying, "Oh, I didn't know that was edible!" or "Dang, I can make rope out of this?". I thought I knew the plants of the Colorado Rockies pretty well, and then I started eating them and realizing that my learning had just begun. I am getting pretty decent with a bow-drill and I've tanned a few dozen hides. But I realize I have the knowledge of about an 8 year-old Cheyenne boy. I am getting better at accepting that tomorrow is another day.
--Kevin T. Broomfield, Colorado
Looking for life-changing resources? Check out these books by Thomas J. Elpel:
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