"Skills for Real Living Programs"

Education programs in off-the-grid living, farming for year round eating, natural building, homesteading skills, ancestral/primitive skills, community living, and more.

Why Skills for Real Living?

American life has become increasingly fast paced. Many people feel trapped into working demanding hours at jobs they don't feel passionate about to support a lifestyle of accumulating material possessions they don't need. People feel confined in a world of mass produced goods and corporate chain stores with no obvious alternatives. Most messages we receive from parents, teachers, employers, etc., reinforce the idea that this is the only way of going about things. This belief has led to an increasingly unhappy and medicated society as well wide spread environmental destruction.

The purpose of the "Skills for Real Living" programs is to show an alternative. They are designed to empower people to make their own choices by giving them a wide range of skills to meet their basic needs with less dependence on "modern society". They focus on living closer to the source; fostering creativity, self reliance and the connection that comes with making things for oneself. Programs at Mt. Defiance seek to foster connection not only with the world around us through creation of food, clothing, shelter and tools, but greater connection with ourselves through greater understanding of our peers and community, and our own bodies. They do not preach one particular ethic, but rather integrate ancestral/primitive skills, organic farming and homesteading skills and modern alternative technologies.

What Do Programs Look Like?

Participants live and work together on a beautiful off-the-grid farm outside of Hood River, Oregon, with a majestic view of Mt. Hood.

While each course has a different focus, they are all part of the over arching theme of living sustainably and in connection with the world around us. They are designed to be complete unto themselves but also complimentary with one another and can be combined or repeated as each student sees fit.

The weeks are divided into personal projects, group projects, communication and community building activities, cooking community meals, growing food, not only for ourselves, but also for next year's programs.

Certain core elements will be covered to varying degrees in all of our courses. These include:

• Organic Gardening and Permaculture
• Off the grid living
• Eating from the garden year round
• Communication and Community Living Skills
• Self Reliance skills (humanure, gathering and wildcrafting, living without refrigeration, etc.)

Other skills covered may vary course to course and year to year. Some of skills thay may be covered include:

• Butchering and Meat Processing
• Hide Tanning and Buckskin Clothing
• Fiber Arts (Spinning, felting, knitting, etc)
• Herbal medicine (Tincture and Salve making)
• Mead Making
• Pottery
• Natural Building (Cob and Light Straw Clay)
• Blacksmithing
• Woodworking (Burn bowls, utensils, etc)
• Willow Basketry
• Livestock
• Alternative energy systems
• Opportunity to attend skills gatherings

2012 Courses:

Fiber Arts Intensive April 8-14 $550

Learn how to select the best fleece for your project, how to clean and process wool, fiber preparation, drop spinning, wet felting and needle felting applique. Participants will make and take home several completed felt pieces.

Homesteading Intensive May 13 - June 9 $1350

This course focuses on small scale subsistence farming for year round eating. We will practice living within cycles of seasonal abundance, principles of permaculture, composting and humanure, soil building and maintenance, growing for seed, small animal butchering, and more.

Ancestral Skills Intensive August 5 - August 31 $1450

Primitive skills such as friction fire, cordage, stone tools, animal processing, willow basketry, hide tanning, hide sewing and clothing, and more...

Preserving the Harvest September 30 - October 13 $725

Taught during the peak of garden abundance, this course will focus on skills to help you east year round from the garden, extending the season with greenhouses and cold frames, seed saving and processing, root cellaring, drying, canning, pickling, fermneting, and smnall animal processing and more...

Tuition covers food and camping accomodations, basic materials and instruction.
Early registration discount if registered 3 months or more before start of course