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Earth Skills Classes and Adventures
with Thomas J. Elpel & Friends

     In our effort to make a difference in the world, we are continually launching new businesses, and rethinking and reshuffling the existing ones. Hollowtop Outdoor Primitive School, LLC is now dedicated solely to our work to bring Earth Skills Education into the schools. Our Earth Skills Classes for Adults are now conducted through Green University®, mostly in an exceedingly informal and unscheduled format for participants in our Internship Program. However, we do occasionally have some structured classes with usually fuzzy dates, which are listed below, and if you are especially persistent in asking, then we might be able to include you in one of our informal Canoe Trips & Walkabouts.

Earth Skills & Botany | Canoe Trips & Walk-Abouts | Internships | Classes for Public Schools | Register

Earth Skills Classes
Hands-On Primitive Skills & Botany Instruction

Plant Talk: Botany in a Day Online Discussion Group with Marc Williams
      Join ethnobotanist Marc Williams for the tenth annual Botany in a Day online discussion group, carrying on the tradition started by Frank Cook. Starting in May, Marc will guide participants through lessons every other week for six months. It is an excellent way to keep on track with your botany studies. For more information, please go to www.BotanyEveryDay.com
     Marc Williams is an ethnobotanist. He has studied plants intensively while learning to use them for food, medicine, and beauty. His training includes a bachelor's degree in Environmental Studies concentrating in Sustainable Agriculture from Warren Wilson College, over a decade working at a multitude of restaurants, various farms, and travels throughout 22 countries in North/Central America and Europe. Marc has taught hundreds of people about the marvelous world of plants and their respective uses. He will soon receive a master's degree in Appalachian Studies concentrating in Sustainable Development with a minor in Geography and Planning from Appalachian State University.

Wildflowers and Foraging with Thomas J. Elpel
      Join Thomas J. Elpel, author of Botany in a Day: The Patterns Method of Plant Identification, for a fun day of wildflower identification, foraging, and games. Learn to recognize family patterns to identify our most common plants and their uses. We will identify flowers, play plant identification card games, and go foraging for a wild salad.
      Related plants have similar features for identification, and they often have similar properties and similar uses. You can cut years off the process of learning about plants by studying these patterns. There are tens of thousands of plant species across the northern latitudes, but only about 100 families of plants. Learning the patterns of the families will give you useful information about new plants you encounter, even before you know their names. Tom's book Botany in a Day has changed the way thousands of people learn about plants. It is used as a guide in herbal and wilderness schools and universities across North America.

Willow Basketry / Barbwire Basketry with Thomas J. Elpel
     Join us in Silver Star for a day of fun handicrafts, and learn to weave beautiful baskets from free materials! In this class we will be teaching both willow basketry and barbwire basketry. Willow basketry is an essential wilderness skill, a means of making sturdy containers for storing or portaging food and gear. Back at home, willow baskets bring a touch of nature to your household decor, serving as functional art--something that looks nice, but can also be used to store things. Barbwire basketry is a means to recycle rusty barbwire from old fences into something new and useful. The baskets make especially beautiful pots for the front porch. Participants will have the opportunity to try willow basketry or barbwire basketry, or a little of both. Silver Star, Montana. Cost: $40. How to Register.

Hide Tanning with Thomas J. Elpel
     This three-day workshop involves the novice with the art of braintanning hides. Braintanning is an ancient craft that uses the lecithin present in brain matter as an agent for softening hides. Each person dehairs a hide on day one with the wet-scrape process and prepares the hide for the brain and water solution. Hides soak overnight in the brains. The following day we work the hides until they are soft and dry. Then we smoke the hides on day three to set the tan permanently, and we discuss the manufacture and sewing of clothing. Hides, equipment and brains are all provided. (We usually substitute eggs for brains.) Silver Star, Montana. Cost: $200. How to Register.

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Canoe Trips & Walkabouts
Join us for an Unforgettable Adventure!

Wilderness Survival Adventures with Thomas J. Elpel
      Looking for the adventure of a lifetime? Tom is always thrilled for the chance to get out of the office to go trekking some place new, and he loves taking people out to experience nature on its own terms, often with very little gear. (Be sure to read our camping journals!)
      Our canoe trips and walkabouts are not structured like classes, nor is there a fee to participate. It is just something we like to do with friends, family members, interns, and pretty much anyone else who is sufficiently physically fit and wants to come along.
      You are especially welcome to join us if you happen to be experienced in wildernes survival, nature awareness, and/or tracking skills, and you think you have something to contribute to the experience.
      Skills or no skills, just click on over to our Contact Page and send us an e-mail to tell us about yourself, what your background is, and why you would like to join us for one of our outings. Please keep in mind that these experiences are largely unscheduled ahead of time, so you may have days, rather than weeks, to make the necessary arrangements to get here. Also be sure to look at our suggested Equipment List.
     Tom occassionally joins wilderness survival treks through other schools as an opportunity to share what he knows, and to pick up new skills and new experiences. He is always open to novel invitations, although exceedingly busy, and thus not always available to come.

Jefferson River Canoe Trail Association
Annual Meeting and Canoe Trip
     Come join us for our Jefferson River Canoe Trail Association Annual Meeting and Canoe Trip. We will get together at 10:00 a.m. at Granny's Country Store in Silver Star for a meeting and board member elections, followed by a potluck lunch and a short float down the Jefferson River. Bring your own canoe, if available, or ask ahead of time to borrow one of ours.
     There is no cost for the trip, although we would gladly welcome contributions to the Canoe Trail to help buy habitat for people and wildlife along the rivers. No Cost. Date to be announced.

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Internships
Immerse yourself in an extended Green Building & Primitive Living Experience!

Read Norm's Primitive Skills Internship Journal: Six Months at Hollowtop School.

     Are you looking for a life-changing experience? Apply to our Internship program and change your world while you learn to change the world. Expect a well-rounded, although exceedingly informal curriculum that includes everything from stone masonry and welding, to wilderness survival expeditions--as well as the more cerebral exercises of writing project proposals and applying for grant funds for projects such as the Jefferson River Canoe Trail. For a complete description please click over to our Green University® Internships page.

Programs for Public Schools
We Connect Students with the Real World!

      Through our business Hollowtop Outdoor Primitive School, LLC we have been working with the local schools to get kids out of the classroom for hands-on instruction in earth skills education. We have taken elementary kids out for day-long field trips and brought the junior high kids out for overnight trips.
     Working with school kids this way has become our favorite kind of teaching. It is really interesting to work with the same group of kids for one or two days each year over many years. They become comfortable in the woods in a way that you do not see with people that are coming for the first time.
     We are working towards building a graduating outdoor skills curriculum for all the local schools, where even kindergarten kids would come out for a field trip, learn a few skills, and build on those skills through subsequent field trips each year until they were quite proficient in the outdoors--and knowledgeable about ecology issues--by the time they graduated from school. Please see Hollowtop Outdoor Primitive School, LLC's K - 12 Class Schedule for additional information.

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How to Register
Register Early to Reserve your Space!

      Whether you are interested in a scheduled class or a custom class, please contact us via e-mail and tell us about yourself, your background, and what kind of an experience you are looking for. We will help you determine if one of our existing classes is right for you, or if we should schedule a customized class to suit your needs. (You may also be able to join another customized class that is not listed on our regular schedule.)
      Once we have mutually agreed on the ideal class for you, then you can complete the registration process. All participants are required to read and sign our Liability Waiver and Release Form (PDF). You can print and mail it in with your class tuition, or sign it up on arrival. We accept payment via Check, Money Order, or Credit Card.
      Ready to get started? Please click over to our Contact Page and write us a letter and tell us something about yourself and what you are looking for.

Green University® Upcoming Classes Call List
Be the first to hear about upcoming classes!

      To be notified about upcoming additions and changes to our programs, you are invited to join our Green University® Upcoming Classes Call List. Please click over to our Contact Page and send an e-mail asking to be included on the Green University® Call List. The list is not used for any other purpose, and it will not be shared with any other source. Expect to receive class updates 2 to 4 times a year, with notices on stone masonry classes, earth skills classes, and informal canoe trips and walk-abouts.

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Dear Thomas,

      My wife gave me Botany in a Day and Participating in Nature for my birthday in September.

      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
(used with permission)

Check out these books by Thomas J. Elpel!

Participating in Nature

Botany in a Day

Direct Pointing to Real Wealth

Living Homes

Roadmap to Reality