Our teaching journey didn't start in classrooms—it started with that persistent sense that there's more to food, health, and belonging than what modern systems offer. For Paul, it was age seven, realizing there was more to eating than what came from boxes. For Thera and Cayden, it was their own paths toward wild places and homegrown solutions. That shared hunger for understanding became a lifetime of learning in the field, and eventually, a calling to share what the land teaches.

The Path Here

Over twenty years of walking students through forests, wetlands, and alpine zones. Teaching tribal youth traditional plant uses their grandparents remembered. Leading homeschool families through seasonal harvest cycles. Working with public school systems that wanted more than textbook botany. Guiding adults who felt disconnected from the systems that fed them and wanted to find their way back.

Paul brings credentials—Bachelor's in Botany, Master's in Ethnobotany, Nationally Certified Interpretive Guide (NAI CIG), certified teacher in multiple states. But the real education for all of us happened in the field. Extended stays in the Inland Plateau, learning from communities who never lost their relationship with wild foods. Seasons on the Oregon Coast watching what fruited after storms. Years in the Adirondacks, the Everglades, and now the Ozarks together, building the kind of literacy that only comes from showing up, season after season, watching what emerges and when.

As a family who homeschools and lives the skills we teach, we understand education as something deeper than curriculum—it's a way of life, passed through experience, practiced daily, refined through seasons of trial and observation.

How We Teach

We don't teach from podiums or PowerPoints. We teach on trails, at forest edges where ecosystems overlap, in places where you can smell the mycorrhizal networks working beneath your feet. Students learn by doing: identifying plants by characteristics that hold across seasons, harvesting in ways that leave populations thriving, processing what they gather, understanding the timing that makes the difference between a successful forage and wasted effort.

This isn't weekend naturalism. It's building observation skills that deepen over years. Ethical frameworks that guide practice across changing contexts. Confidence that comes from genuine competence—knowing a species so well you can find it in new terrain, read a landscape and predict what's fruiting, teach others without hesitation because you've done the work yourself.

Our homeschool experience informs everything we offer—we know how to meet learners where they are, adapt to different learning styles, and create educational experiences that stick because they're rooted in real practice, not abstraction.

What We Offer

• Guided Foraging Workshops: Species-specific deep dives, seasonal harvest training, ethical practice foundations
• Ethnobotany Courses: Traditional plant knowledge, cultural context, bridging indigenous wisdom with contemporary science
• Wilderness Skills Training: Observation techniques, landscape literacy, survival skills grounded in ecological understanding
• Homeschool Programs: Custom curriculum for families seeking place-based, hands-on natural science education that integrates seamlessly with home learning
• Professional Development: Training for educators in environmental and experiential fields who want field-tested methods
• Mentorship Programs: Long-term guidance for aspiring field researchers, foragers, and land stewards

Our Approach

We teach as a family, drawing on our different strengths and perspectives. What we offer isn't just information transfer—it's initiation into a way of seeing, a way of being in relationship with land and season. Education for the long term, building skills that serve for a lifetime and knowledge that gets passed down.

Interested in a workshop, course, or custom program? Contact us to discuss educational offerings, scheduling, and how we can serve your learning community.