Current Course Instructors

Lori Peters

Lori Peters is an artist living in the heart of the Kickapoo Valley. She is a contemporary quilter, dollmaker and general seamstress, and also sells and teaches pysanky (Ukrainian eggs). She’s been featured in multiple publications, news segments and won awards at several art festivals for her eggs and classes. Lori surrounds herself with art that has historical meaning, it makes her feel as if she’s a connecting thread between the past and future.

Lori Peters teaches:

Ian Miller

Ian Miller is a natural builder, farmer, baker and drummer. Originally from Dubuque, Iowa, he lived in California for eight years, where he was a professional musician and later studied agroecology. His studies lead to him working at a biodynamic farm in Austria for two years, an experience that made a lasting impression on him. There he learned to garden, grow grains, mow with the scythe and bake whole-grain sourdough breads. Ian and his wife recently bought land and built a strawbale/cob cabin, in which they live. They plan on raising small grains and oilseed crops, continue to bake for the local farmers market and build more natural buildings at their farm, Bergbauernhof, near Decorah, Iowa.

Ian Miller teaches:

Amelia Baxter

Amelia Baxter began composting with worms, and teaching about compost, as an urban farmer in Chicago in 2001, and brought these hungry red wigglers to her life on Driftless Farm in 2005. They have since devoured hundreds of pounds of humanure, helping Amelia participate with the life cycles on the farm, and in the outhouse.

Amelia Baxter teaches:

Corina Bergan

Corina Bergan was born and raised in the Driftless region, on a small farm halfway between Viroqua and La Farge. Now, she lives on a farm about ten miles north with her husband Lars, her son Elliot, four cats, five ducks, two pigs, eighteen cows, and a few dozen chickens. After arriving on the farm three years ago, Corina has been establishing a new garden (or two or three) every spring. Whether she’s putting together a jar of pickles or hauling the stone for a new patio, Corina likes to create beauty wherever she goes.

Corina Bergan teaches:

Kathy Casper

Kathy Casper has been studying and performing traditional Appalachian clogging (also called flatfooting) for 15 years. She has learned traditional clogging styles from dancers in West Virginia, North Carolina, Illinois and Missouri. She twice won third prize in the flatfooting competition at the annual Appalachian Stringband Festival in Clifftop, West Virginia. She performed for several seasons in tap dancer Reggio “the Hoofer” McLaughlin’s production The Nut Tapper, a percussive dance version of the Nutcracker, at Chicago’s Athenaeum Theater. Kathy currently resides in rural Soldiers Grove and is a member of the Shoe Fly Cloggers. She is excited to share her love of traditional dance with others!

Kathy Casper teaches:

Brenda Corr

Brenda Corr lives in Viroqua with her husband Michael and their four children. While experiencing some major safety issues after purchasing her first horse she was introduced to Natural Horsemanship. The results were amazing and she hasn’t looked back. Her dream went from just enjoying a “horse to ride” to a passion of reading the horse and teaching others about the natural language that will allow anyone to be successful with horses.

Brenda Corr teaches:

Summer Deal-Schulz

Summer Deal-Schulz is a professional massage therapist, whose life skills include gardening, music, and fiber arts. It was through her connection with primitive skills gatherings that she first discovered the craft of felting. Summer’s focus with felt is both art and function, creating warm, wearable fiber. She has been playing/teaching fiddle for 10 years. A great influence for Summer was her time at Earthaven Ecovillage, an intentional community in North Carolina, where she studied natural building, permaculture, and community living. She lives with her family on a homestead in Hillsboro, WI. You can read much more about the Deal-Schulz family homestead in an article published in the April/May 2010 edition of Mother Earth News entitled Learning to Live a Self-Sufficient Life

Summer Deal-Schulz teaches:

Nancy Filbert

Nancy Filbert has been a Hoof Care Specialist for the past 10 years. As a graduate of the European School of Hoof Orthopedics, she has been practicing statewide as well as nationwide during this period. Many cases addressing her attention have been labeled “hopeless and incurable” by orthodox medicine. Nancy has been in great demand with all equine disciplines for her excellent teaching and trimming ability to bring proper hoof function and the trim process to light. She has been servicing this region for the past 8 years.

Nancy Filbert teaches:

Eric Frank

Eric Frank lives with his family, Becky Sue and Aven, in the city of Bayfield where they have begun a permaculture inspired home and landscape renovation that will offer diverse yields including a self-sufficient lifestyle, retail sales for fruits, vegetables, mushrooms, eggs, compost, beneficial organisms and plant materials, yoga and therapeutic massage. As the primary for Bay Permaculture, Eric works in Bayfield and elsewhere offering permaculture services for hire such as design, construction and maintenance of ecological agro-systems. Participating in a number of organizations with the net goal of ecological community development, Eric’s intents are to contribute to, and advocate for emergent and existing ecological cultures regionally. Eric’s education background has a consistent theme of the humanities and agriculture, and he earned his permaculture design certificate in 2006. Currently Eric is pursuing a diploma in Permaculture Design, and gearing up for gardening and teaching in 2010.

Eric Frank teaches:

Tom Galazen

Tom Galazen is an expert on self-sufficient living powered by wind and solar, and lives on land homesteaded by his grandparents outside of his hometown of Bayfield, WI where he operates off-grid Northwind Organic Farm specializing in perennial fruits, vegetables, homemade jams and preserves, cider, and a is CSA cooperative member. As a long time activist, advocate, organizer, and pioneer of ecological cultural change, Tom also offers folk school style courses on his farm on the topics of grafting, brain tanning, and hosts an annual seed saving workshop, swap and potluck for area gardeners attracting large crowds in recent years. Opportunities offered through his farm are many, and include internships with a decade plus worth of past interns including Clare Hintz and Eric Frank. At present Tom is beginning to offer courses on self-sufficient lifestyles via webinars with Midwest Permaculture, and at the Midwest Organic Farming Conference hosted annually by MOSES.

Tom Galazen teaches:

Clare Hintz

Clare Hintz is the Campus Sustainability Coordinator for Northland College in Ashland, Wisconsin, and runs Elsewhere Farm in Herbster, Wisconsin, which features perennial fruits and nuts. She teaches Sustainable Agriculture in the Growing Connections program – a liberal arts program that focuses on interdisciplinary approaches to complex issues. Clare is also part of the leadership committee of the Midwest Regional Collaborative for Sustainability Education, and has her Master’s of Science Degree in Sustainable Systems and Agroecology. She received her certificate in Advanced Permaculture Design in 2008, and teaches Permaculture design in northern Wisconsin. Currently she is building a winter greenhouse.

Clare Hintz teaches:

Rikardo Jahnke

Rikardo Jahnke has been orcharding since 1996, and grafting longer than that. He has been selling apples, cider, jams and other value added products at Viroqua Farmer's Market for 10 years. He grows 53 varieties of apples. Rikardo lives in Crawford County, WI.

Rikardo Jahnke teaches:

Daphne Kingsley

Daphne Kingsley has been baking whole grain sourdough breads for 10 years. She began to experiment with baking whole grain sourdough breads in a wood-fired brick oven while apprenticing on a biodynamic vegetable farm in Northern CA. During that time she initiated a bread share for the existing vegetable CSA, baking 50-75 handmade loaves in the woodfired oven once a week. Daphne also spent time working in an on-farm artisan bakery in Hawthorne Valley, NY and a short time baking hearth style whole grain sourdough breads for the Viroqua Food Coop. Daphne currently bakes regularly for her family on her small farm in Cashton.

Daphne Kingsley teaches:

Nathaniel Larson

Nathaniel Larson lives on the Bayfield peninsula where he conducts The Draw, a permaculture farm, Stewards Draw, a non-profit organization focused on regenerative land management techniques, and also Waters Edge Nursery, a plant nursery offering retail plants for permaculturists and gardeners at large. His passion for all things biological has led him to explore a synthesis of ontology and epistemology; through research, education and creating a living example of sustainability he hopes to be a part of the transition to a culture comprised of beneficial organisms. Presently Nathaniel and wife Shyam are increasing the presence of mega-fauna at The Draw with a new baby girl named Amelie, four milking cows, two draft horses, a couple of pigs, sheep and a whole lot of poultry. Site visits, classes, internships and other opportunities are available regularly.

Nathaniel Larson teaches:

Ann Ralles Mahan

Ann Ralles Mahan began gardening in the mountain deserts of Arizona and appreciates the bounty of her land near Viroqua. She is passionate about anything to do with great food including growing, cooking and preserving. She spends winters playing her accordion and working in her dental clinic in La Crosse treating snoring and sleep apnea with dental appliances. Her husband Chris shares her passion for learning and practicing homesteading skills such as bee-keeping, horse-driving and building with re-used materials.

Ann Ralles Mahan teaches:

Michelle Rasmussen

Michelle Rasmussen has been blest to live her passion of training horses and people since 2002 when she began studying and using Parelli Natural Horsemanship. As a mother of four young children at the time, her goal was to teach the children to be safe, confident and understand how horses think. Her goals have expanded to teaching others who want to learn to be natural with their animals. She has trained many horses and has five of four different breeds of her own. Each horse teaches her daily the importance of growing as a natural horseman while having fun and using her God-given gifts to inspire, encourage and help her students and horses. Her husband of 28 years, Brian, is supportive and appreciative of her business and the horses.

Michelle Rasmussen teaches:

Kelvin Rodolfo

Kelvin Rodolfo has been a professional geologist since 1958. He has worked in petroleum exploration, deep-sea scientific drilling, volcanology, flooding, groundwater extraction and land subsidence, natural-hazard mitigation, “peak oil”, renewable energy, and climate change. He is now a retired professor who maintains his connection with the University of Illinois at Chicago, as Professor Emeritus of Earth and Environmental Sciences. Kelvin and his wife Kathy Crittenden owned 60 acres in Grant since the early 70’s, where they first learned about karst geology. They moved in 2008 to Viroqua town, where they built a “green” home heated and powered by the sun and wind, and where they are developing a permaculture market garden and orchard, with the generous help of their neighbors Jenny, Rice, Ceci, and Hugh Spann.

Kelvin Rodolfo teaches:

Corky Roethel

Corky (Coreen) Roethel has been a Hunter Education Instructor since 2004 with the Coon Valley Conservation Club and an assistant with the Viroqua Hunter Education class. She was an instructor for Women In The Outdoors pheasant hunting class in 2003. She also is a mentor for hunters new to the sport of pheasant hunting. She is owner/operator of Badgerland Pheasant Farm, LLC hunting preserve near Westby, WI.

Corky Roethel teaches:

Jane Siemon

Jane Siemon is a 30-year organic farmer and instructor of cooking and nutrition in natural and organic food. She has taught cooking and nutrition classes to employees of Organic Valley and to high school students for over 12 years. She has raised and butchered her own chickens on the farm yearly.

Jane Siemon teaches:

Nick Smolen

Nick Smolen is a self taught artist-blacksmith. His work is varied, from hand-forged ironwork and custom knives to Mokume Gane jewelry and Damascus steel blade stock. Nick has been turning out work from his small shop in rural Westby, Wisconsin since 1988 when he began making Damascus steel for custom knifemakers. He is a member of the Artist Blacksmith’s Association of North America. While he designs all of his own work, Nick welcomes the opportunity to create custom pieces.

Nick Smolen teaches:

Rasha Abdulhadi

Growing up somewhere between Damascus, rural Georgia, and southside Chicago, Rasha has worked as a educator and practitioner of sustainable agriculture and community technology. She’s focused on making technical knowledge and hands-on skills accessible for people of all ages, with a strong emphasis on developing tools for self-sufficiency. Rasha has made and remade clothes for herself and others since she was a wee thing. She is overwintering in the Driftless until springtime comes, when she will fire up a vegetable-oil-burning truck named Bess and continue her nationwide tour in search of radical futures.

Rasha Abdulhadi teaches:

Julee Caspers Agar

Julee has performed and taught Irish step dance, ceili dance, and set dance for over 2 decades in the Midwest. She occasionally performs with Shoefly! a percussive step dance troupe based in Gays Mills, WI. Her passions are dance (of all kinds) and foreign languages (of all kinds). Currently she is teaching Spanish at Youth Initiative High School, interpreting for the Vernon County Hispanic Community, and choreographing for the Westby High School Fall Musicals.

Julee Caspers Agar teaches:

John Bethke

John is a 22-year resident of Westby, Wisconsin and is retired from the University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse Facilities Management Department. He has taught flyfishing at UW-L for 12 yrs and now wishes to share his knowledge and love of the sport with members of the local community. At 62 yrs of age, he has been flyfishing for over 50 yrs and has been involved in Trout Unlimited, the Wisconsin Conservation Congress, and local clubs. John grew up in New Glarus, WI, is a Vietnam veteran, and has 2 sons Matt and Jake who are also avid flyfishers. His wife Sue kindly tolerates his innocent obsession with fishing, fly tying, and bamboo rod building.

John Bethke teaches:

Mike Breckel

Mike lives with his family near Westby, WI. On the subject of making beer he writes: “Homebrewing has been a full time hobby and sometime passion of mine for the past 20 years. I started brewing because I developed a taste for dark full-bodied beer that I could not get locally. Brewing my own beer has opened up a whole new world for me. The variety of tastes, textures, and aromas that are available to the homebrewer is nearly unlimited. Homebrewing led me to start a small homebrewing supply company because the closest supply store was in Madison. I ran that company for about 10 years out of my home and learned a lot about homebrewers in the process. I also taught brewing classes many times during that period to introduce people to the art. Sharing the art of homebrewing with someone builds a long lasting bond, glued together by the shared love for quality beer.”

Mike Breckel teaches:

Linda Conroy

Linda is an herbalist, cheese maker and whole food enthusiast, who has dedicated her life to connecting with the natural world. After apprenticing on several goat farms, Linda continues to make cheese in her own kitchen. She has been doing so for close to a decade and has been teaching this lost art for the past 6 years. Linda has a certificate in permaculture design, a degree in social work, has studied with Isla Burgess of the International College of Herbal Medicine, and has completed residential herbal apprenticeships with Susun Weed at the Wise Woman Center as well as at Ravencroft Gardens. She is the founder of Moonwise Herbs and Wild Eats: A Movement to Promote Whole, Local and Wild Foods in Community. Linda is a vibrant woman who continually seeks to deepen her connection to the natural world! You can learn more at moonwiseherbs.com.

Linda Conroy teaches:

Royce Curtis

Royce is a life-long hunter and a Certified Wisconsin DNR Hunter Safety Education Instructor and also a Certified 4-H Shooting Sports Leader. He is a retired teacher and resides on a farm in Timber Coulee with his wife, French Brittany, and herd of Highland cattle. He has hunted both small game and big game in several states with rifle, shotgun, bow and traditional muzzleloader. He especially enjoys target shooting competitions with his traditional muzzleloaders and his self bow. He feels a special responsibility and joy in helping others learn and practice safe hunting and firearm skills.

Royce Curtis teaches:

Craig Dunek

Craig completed his undergraduate degree at UW-La Crosse double majoring in Biochemistry and Microbiology. He continued his studies at UW-L where he earned his Masters Degree in Biology with a focus on Mycology (the study of fungi). He moved to LaFarge last year with his wife and trusted four-legged friend Grif (short for Griffola which is a delicious wild mushroom). Craig loves to spend the majority of his time in the outdoors whether looking for fungi, playing in the garden, or finding the perfect place for his deer stands.

Craig Dunek teaches:

Annie Grieshop

Like many Sacred Harp singers from the North, Annie stumbled into this wonderful way of singing by accident. In the early ‘90s, a friend gave her music with funny notes and wonderful songs, and she organized people to sing it… until a stranger said “But you’re doing it all wrong.” So she went South, and learned to do it right. Since then, she has led many singing schools, founded the Iowa All-Day Singing, and written about singing in the Wapsipinicon Almanac (no. 10, “Driving Across Iowa”). In her non-singing life, she is a piano technician and plays for barn dances.

Annie Grieshop teaches:

Roald Gundersen

Roald Gundersen, founding partner and CEO of Whole Trees Architecture and Construction near La Crosse. He received his Bachelor of Architecture and a BS in Environmental Design from the University of Minnesota, (1984). His work as a project architect on the Biosphere 2 in Arizona focused his architecture on integrated living systems. On returning to his native Wisconsin, Roald created a place-based architecture from abundant, local and low energy materials, building cold climate greenhouses, homes and small commercial spaces. He has pioneered the use of whole trees in residential, institutional and commercial construction projects, inspired by the 140 acres of forests he stewards near La Crosse, WI. For the past 16 years, Roald Gundersen has been empirically testing the feasibility of using whole tree technology to construct beautiful, strong, economical and extremely green buildings from forest thinnings. Learn more about Roald and whole tree construction at www.wholetrees.com.

Roald Gundersen teaches:

John Holzwart

John is a broom maker, artist, gardener, wildforager, and along with his partner is the proprietor of Moonwise Herbs. He has been collecting and using things from nature since childhood. Whether he is collecting branches for broom handles, mushrooms for supper, or fiberous plants for cordage, he is always inspired by the natural world. John has studied beginning and advanced broom making, cordwood masonry, has mastered the art of cordage making and creates rustic furniture, fences and trellises.

John Holzwart teaches:

Vince and Dawn Hundt

Vince grew up as the tenth of thirteen children on a small dairy farm near Middle Ridge, WI and Dawn hails from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Together, they have operated their own ridgetop dairy farm near Coon Valley since 1978, transitioning to organics in the late 1980s. They have raised 4 children and established the Rotochopper company, which designs and markets industrial grinders. Both Vince and Dawn are long time volunteers with local organizations such as Norskedalen, Pleasant Ridge Waldorf School, and the Youth Initiative High School. Woodland conservation, sustainable forest management, traditional Wisconsin foods play important roles in their lives. One of their current projects is St. Brigid’s Meadows, an organic farm partnership raising grassfed beef cattle, milking jerseys, and other sustainable farm products.

Vince and Dawn Hundt teaches:

Tim Jenkins

Since his first trip to North Carolina in 1973 Tim has been involved in oldtime dancing, tune-playing, and the teaching or calling of the tunes and dances. He has traveled and has been hired to call at numerous community dances, weddings, family events, and festivals in each corner of our country. Tim has met and been inspired by many others who have shared the tradition of music and dance and he is interested in sharing this gift with others.

Tim Jenkins teaches:

Dale Kittleson

Dale lives in a wind and solar powered home with Frances, Alex, Clara, Mitts the solar cat, two goldfish, one hamster, and (out in the coop) 20 chickens. During the day he works at Wild Rose Timberworks where he and his two partners build timberframes.

Dale Kittleson teaches:

Chuck Meyer

Chuck has a B.S. degree in Animal Ecology from Iowa State University and graduate research and coursework at the University of Minnesota. He has traveled all over the lower 48 states after receiving his undergraduate degree working for an environmental consulting firm. He also has experience with banding and tracking birds electronically (radio telemetry). Much of his work focused on bird surveys. He was born in Iowa, moved to Minnesota for graduate school, and finally decided to settle in the Viroqua area. He will also be teaching bird watching classes at Western Technical College in LaCrosse.

Chuck Meyer teaches:

Brad Nichols

Brad received a BS from the U. of Wisconsin-La Crosse in 1997 and a MFA in metalsmithing from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 1999. He currently lives in Galesville, WI, and for the past nine years has supported himself as a studio artist creating commissioned sculpture, furniture, and architectural ironwork. Complimenting his professional activities, Brad currently serves as an Instructional Academic Staff member in the Art Department at the U. of Wisconsin-La Crosse. Brad lectures, demonstrates and exhibits his work nationally.

Brad Nichols teaches:

Dan Peper

Dan taught art and industrial arts for ten years in the public schools. He is presently a consultant and designer for Green Peper Building and a grass farmer raising Suffolk Punch draft horses. The team of Valerie and Vonda help do most of the heavy work on the 40-acre homestead of Dan and his wife Ruth. Dan strives for a degree of self-sufficiency within an aesthetic and sustainable context.

Dan Peper teaches:

Robert Schulz

Robert has been blacksmithing since 1996, focusing on the techniques of traditional joinery. He has been a student of UW-LaCrosse, U. of Wales-Swansea, John C. Campbell Folk School (NC), and Tillers International (MI), and has worked on several organic farms in the U.S. and abroad. Along with ironwork, Robert has been focusing on alternative building and carpentry, while he and his family have been setting up the infrastructure of their 40 acre homestead. Their practices include draft animal power, stonework, maple sugaring, and beekeeping. You can read much more about Robert’s homestead and biography in an article published in the April/May 2010 edition of Mother Earth News entitled Learning to Live a Self-Sufficient Life

Robert Schulz teaches:

Matt Shortridge

Matt has been playing and teaching Irish fiddle and guitar for 20 years. Before moving to the Driftless Region, he was a mainstay in the Washington, DC and Baltimore Irish music scene, playing sessions, dances and concerts around the east coast. Matt taught at at the Augusta Heritage Center Irish Week for 10 years at Davis and Elkins College where he performed with Billy McComisky, Mike Rafferty, and others. He has also taught at the Colorado Roots Music Camp on the flanks of Pikes Peak and at the Ceoltas Ceoltori Erin Fiddle Week in Washington DC. Matt is also a new member of Paddy O’Brien’s Doon Ceili Band, based in St. Paul.

Matt Shortridge teaches:

Rice Spann

Rice lives on a small farm outside of Viroqua with his wife and two young children. He has a life-long passion for hunting and fishing that he enjoys sharing with others.

Rice Spann teaches:

Perry Yoder

Perry and his family manage a 233-acre horse-powered farm in rural Hillsboro, WI. Here they produce organic milk, eggs, animal feed crops, and organic produce. Perry produces maple syrup using a simple spile and bucket, as well as a gravity line system.

Perry Yoder teaches: