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To Help You Reconnect to the Wild at Home
Virtual Plant Walk
Explore the Appalachians from your couch, and learn how to empower yourself with your own free and vital wild food and medicine!
Join botanist, herbalist and professional forager, Abby Artemisia, to meander through the abundance of wild food and medicine that can be foraged in the late summer/early fall.
Abby believes nature education is so important, especially information on wild edible and medicinal plants, to help us survive in these tough times. That's why she adapted her plant walks to a virtual format, to help you continue to thrive whether you're far away or COVID is keeping you away from group activities.
This plant walk, in the gorgeous Blue Ridge mountains of North Carolina, features plants that you'll find throughout much of the central and eastern US. Plants included: Sourwood, Sassafras, Witch Hazel, Black Birch, Hemlock tree, Blackberry, Ragwort, Violet, and Mountain Mint. For a special treat, the following mushrooms are included, too: a variety of Chanterelles and Leatherback Milkcaps.
Abby teaches you how to harvest the plants and mushrooms, including tips for a sustainable harvest. She tells you about making formulas like teas, tinctures, salves, syrups, and spices, for conditions including coughs, pain, viruses, skin irritation, stagnation, and more. She teaches the Family Method of Identification, giving you patterns to make it easier for you to start to recognize plants and how they're related.
You'll get a private link to the video that you can access anytime and as often as you want but please don't share the link - as we offer SO MUCH free education already and every purchase is important to our small business.
You can even email Abby about the virtual plant walk with your thoughts and questions!
Virtual Botanical Plant Surveys
Take advantage of this seriously special offer!
When you’re walking around outside, and you think...
dang I wish I knew more about these plants!
More plant knowledge could help me survive, if it all came to that...
Your wish is granted.
You can now join botanist, herbalist and professional forager, Abby Artemisia,
for a private virtual botanical plant survey customized FOR YOU.
HERE'S HOW IT WORKS!
- Buy Your Session (or Gift), choosing as many hours as you'd like. If you are buying multiple gifts, please checkout with multiple orders, so each gift recipient receives a unique order number.
- Schedule Your Session: Book a time slot with Abby via email. You will need the order number* to schedule.
- Prep for your session: Test the videoconferencing options agreed on at booking. If you don’t have data reception where you live, or you’d rather do it inside on your computer, just bring the plants you most want to know about (or several pictures of each one). That is very common! Just make sure you walking around outside and note the plants you want to learn about.
- LEARN! Join the videoconference at your scheduled time to begin. During your Virtual Botanical Plant Survey, Abby will focus on a few plants to help you understand your connection to them better through some practical tips on identification as well as the benefits those plants can provide you as food and medicine.
- Grow! Each Virtual Botanical Plant Survey lasts (1) hour. You can do a 2 or 3 hour session also, if you have lots to learn! You'd be surprised how fast an hour flies!
*Your order number becomes available on the thank you page after purchase below, and in the email you'll receive after purchase with the subject "Your downloads are ready!" You will need to note this order number to schedule.
THIS OFFERING MAKES A GREAT GIFT!
If purchasing a Virtual Botanical Plant Survey as a gift, make sure to note the order number you receive, and give THAT to the lucky recipient when you give the gift. You can just print or email out the PDF you receive after purchase to give to to the lucky recipient once you've added the order number details!
HERE'S WHAT FOLKS HAVE TO SAY ABOUT VIRTUAL BOTANICAL PLANT SURVEY WITH ABBY...
- "I was really curious about the trees that were growing outside my window. I felt pretty lonely during quarantine, and they seemed to just keep me company. Abby helped me learn more about them." -Angela G, New York
- "I had no idea that I could eat the weeds that I was pulling out of my garden! I just wanted to know more about them, and turns out now I have extra free food!" -Susie, Ohio
The Herbal Handbook for Homesteaders
When you’re a homesteader, you face many challenges: from a simple cold, to an earache in your child, fleas on the dog, or worms in your goat. Medicines and treatments are never cheap, and are often vague. Wouldn't it be great to grow, forage, and create natural remedies yourself? Look no further than The Herbal Handbook for Homesteaders!
The Wild Foraged Life eCookbook
Don't miss out on this widely anticipated foraged e-Cookbook presented by The WANDER School.
Over 40 pages of wild foraged recipes from Abby's famed kitchen are now yours to enjoy!!!
This book of time-tested recipes from wildcrafter and professional forager, botanist, and herbalist Abby Artemisia includes:
- Tasty seasonings and condiments to sprinkle and drizzle on every meal
- Delicious beverages to sip on and savor
- Incredible entrees to nourish and delight
- Versatile side dishes to add pizzazz and nutrition
- and Delectable desserts, because dessert is a non-negotiable these days
You seriously want to add this e-book to your collection, so that you can serve up some foraged decadence everyday.
BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE!!
An expanded version of this e-cookbook featuring extra exclusive content is also available as a thank you gift for patrons who support The WANDER School on Patreon at $10/month or more.
Patrons get:
- Access to patron-only videos and blog posts
- Tips from Abby’s kitchen
- Herbal medicine-making tutorials
- A behind-the-scenes look at Abby’s classes
- Bonus clips from the Wander, Forage & Wildcraft podcast and Abby’s videos
- Foraged recipe tutorials not available anywhere else
- Recordings of Abby's monthly Book Club
- ....And of course...a copy of The Wild Foraged Life, Abby's widely anticipated e-cookbook.
Become a Patron here to get your expanded e-cookbook featuring 6 Patron-only exclusives for just $10/month. Your support helps us continue inspiring nature connection and health empowerment in a way that’s accessible to everyone despite background, experience, location, or financial status.
The Wild Foraged Life Cookbook - print version
Over 50 pages of wild foraged recipes from Abby's famed kitchen are now yours to enjoy!!!
This book of time-tested recipes from wildcrafter and professional forager, botanist, and herbalist Abby Artemisia includes:
- Tasty seasonings and condiments to sprinkle and drizzle on every meal
- Delicious beverages to sip on and savor
- Incredible entrees to nourish and delight
- Versatile side dishes to add pizzazz and nutrition
- and Delectable desserts, because dessert is a non-negotiable these days
You seriously want to add this e-book to your collection, so that you can serve up some foraged decadence everyday.
BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE!!
An expanded digital version of this cookbook, featuring extra exclusive content, is also available as a thank you gift for patrons who support The WANDER School on Patreon at $10/month or more.
Patrons get:
- Access to patron-only videos and blog posts
- Tips from Abby’s kitchen
- Herbal medicine-making tutorials
- A behind-the-scenes look at Abby’s classes
- Bonus clips from the Wander, Forage & Wildcraft podcast and Abby’s videos
- Foraged recipe tutorials not available anywhere else
- Recordings of Abby's monthly Book Club
- ....And of course...a copy of The Wild Foraged Life, Abby's widely anticipated e-cookbook.
Become a Patron here to get your expanded e-cookbook featuring 6 Patron-only exclusives for just $10/month. Your support helps us continue inspiring nature connection and health empowerment in a way that’s accessible to everyone despite background, experience, location, or financial status.
Get cooking with the NEW e-Cookbook!!!
Over 40 pages of wild foraged recipes can be yours to enjoy!!!
My First Book: The Herbal Handbook for Homesteaders
Handmade Appalachian Wildcrafted Products
Join Abby's Upcoming Classes and Events
Virtual Plant Walk
Explore the Appalachians from your couch, and learn how to empower yourself with your own free and vital wild food and medicine!
Join botanist, herbalist and professional forager, Abby Artemisia, to meander through the abundance of wild food and medicine that can be foraged in the late summer/early fall.
Abby believes nature education is so important, especially information on wild edible and medicinal plants, to help us survive in these tough times. That's why she adapted her plant walks to a virtual format, to help you continue to thrive whether you're far away or COVID is keeping you away from group activities.
This plant walk, in the gorgeous Blue Ridge mountains of North Carolina, features plants that you'll find throughout much of the central and eastern US. Plants included: Sourwood, Sassafras, Witch Hazel, Black Birch, Hemlock tree, Blackberry, Ragwort, Violet, and Mountain Mint. For a special treat, the following mushrooms are included, too: a variety of Chanterelles and Leatherback Milkcaps.
Abby teaches you how to harvest the plants and mushrooms, including tips for a sustainable harvest. She tells you about making formulas like teas, tinctures, salves, syrups, and spices, for conditions including coughs, pain, viruses, skin irritation, stagnation, and more. She teaches the Family Method of Identification, giving you patterns to make it easier for you to start to recognize plants and how they're related.
You'll get a private link to the video that you can access anytime and as often as you want but please don't share the link - as we offer SO MUCH free education already and every purchase is important to our small business.
You can even email Abby about the virtual plant walk with your thoughts and questions!
Virtual Botanical Plant Surveys
Take advantage of this seriously special offer!
When you’re walking around outside, and you think...
dang I wish I knew more about these plants!
More plant knowledge could help me survive, if it all came to that...
Your wish is granted.
You can now join botanist, herbalist and professional forager, Abby Artemisia,
for a private virtual botanical plant survey customized FOR YOU.
HERE'S HOW IT WORKS!
- Buy Your Session (or Gift), choosing as many hours as you'd like. If you are buying multiple gifts, please checkout with multiple orders, so each gift recipient receives a unique order number.
- Schedule Your Session: Book a time slot with Abby via email. You will need the order number* to schedule.
- Prep for your session: Test the videoconferencing options agreed on at booking. If you don’t have data reception where you live, or you’d rather do it inside on your computer, just bring the plants you most want to know about (or several pictures of each one). That is very common! Just make sure you walking around outside and note the plants you want to learn about.
- LEARN! Join the videoconference at your scheduled time to begin. During your Virtual Botanical Plant Survey, Abby will focus on a few plants to help you understand your connection to them better through some practical tips on identification as well as the benefits those plants can provide you as food and medicine.
- Grow! Each Virtual Botanical Plant Survey lasts (1) hour. You can do a 2 or 3 hour session also, if you have lots to learn! You'd be surprised how fast an hour flies!
*Your order number becomes available on the thank you page after purchase below, and in the email you'll receive after purchase with the subject "Your downloads are ready!" You will need to note this order number to schedule.
THIS OFFERING MAKES A GREAT GIFT!
If purchasing a Virtual Botanical Plant Survey as a gift, make sure to note the order number you receive, and give THAT to the lucky recipient when you give the gift. You can just print or email out the PDF you receive after purchase to give to to the lucky recipient once you've added the order number details!
HERE'S WHAT FOLKS HAVE TO SAY ABOUT VIRTUAL BOTANICAL PLANT SURVEY WITH ABBY...
- "I was really curious about the trees that were growing outside my window. I felt pretty lonely during quarantine, and they seemed to just keep me company. Abby helped me learn more about them." -Angela G, New York
- "I had no idea that I could eat the weeds that I was pulling out of my garden! I just wanted to know more about them, and turns out now I have extra free food!" -Susie, Ohio
Wildcrafted Herb School - Roots (1st Year Program)
Sold out
Second Fridays & Saturdays, April - November
April 8-9, May 13-14, June 10-11, July 8-9, August 12-13, September 9-10, October 14-15, November 11-12
10:00 AM - 5:00 PM
Burnsville, NC
This is a DIFFERENT kind of herb school.
We pride ourselves on that.
In this program you will truly learn the Wild Craft of Herbalism.
We believe that the best medicine for our bodies is already available in the plants that grow in the same habitat that we live in, and have adapted to the same environmental issues.
As the world changes and it becomes more difficult and less sustainable to ship herbs from around the world, knowing that everything we need surrounds us, is a comfort and a big leap in the direction of our own security.
It's about connecting with ourselves, each other, and our habitat.
We, at The WANDER School, have never been big fans of sitting in a classroom, we like to wander. So, we think there's a different way to learn.
We'll gather together one Friday and Saturday a month, April - November, at The WANDER School in Burnsville, NC, on the edge of the gorgeous Pisgah National Forest, on the South Toe River.
Fridays will be field trip days. We'll get out into nature to see, touch, taste, and smell the plants. We'll create relationships with the plants, learning how to recognize them through basic botany and spending time together. Then, we'll sustainably and ethically harvest them. We'll bring the plants/plant parts back to school and get real hands-on experience making them into food, medicine, and crafts.
Saturdays will be spent at the school and in the herb gardens. You'll get experience growing wild and cultivated herbs and learning their favorite habitats. We'll also have a different speaker each Saturday. Topics will include, but not be limited to (and are subject to change):
- Traditional Ecological Knowledge and how it is shared appropriately
- Reciprocity in Herbalism (including a field trip to Cherokee, NC)
- Racism/appropriation in Herbalism
- Cherokee and other Native American tribal and African American/Black Herbalism
- Traditional Cherokee foods
- Folk Appalachian Herbalism
- Nature Connection
- Botanical Drawing
- Herbs and Formulas for Skincare
- Ecology and Habitat
- Tree Medicine
- Cooking Wild Foods
- Having an Herbal Products Business
Another important part of this course is learning about and practicing Reciprocity. A part of Herbalism that's often left out of teaching in the American culture is asking where the knowledge came from. There is a long folk herbal tradition in Appalachia, which has been a melting pot of Indigenous knowledge and knowledge from the descendants of enslaved people, and beyond. Though this has created a wide and rich body of knowledge, its roots are not often acknowledged. This is a large part of why The WANDER School became a non-profit, to acknowledge, and go beyond that, to continuously figure out ways that we can give back for this knowledge.
Throughout the course we'll become true Community Herbalists, by giving back to our Cherokee neighbors (and others) through making medicine that can be given away, and more. We'll also learn what cultural appropriation is and how to avoid it in our herbal practice.
Because we don't want to spend so much time sitting in lecture in the classroom, as part of your tuition you'll receive Abby's book, The Herbal Handbook for Homesteaders, and her Make Your Own Herbal Home Remedies course, so you can start the course with a foundation of basic herbal medicine making. You'll have plenty of opportunities to practice and learn more in and out of class, with plenty of medicine to take home.
The WANDER School is a United Plant Savers Partner in Herbal Education. That means you'll automatically get a student membership to United Plant Savers!
Formed in the spirit of hope, United Plant Savers is a group of plant enthusiasts committed to raising public awareness of the plight of our wild medicinal plants and to protecting these plants through organic cultivation, sustainable agricultural practices, and the replanting of native medicinal species back into their natural habitats. Our goal is to ensure that these valuable medicinal plants will be preserved for our grandchildren and our grandchildren's grandchildren.
Members of UpS:
- Receive the annual Journal of Medicinal Plant Conservation
- Participate in Spring and Fall dispersals of seeds/plants for replanting purposes
- Access our directory of nurseries, seed sources, and farms that supply “at-risk” herbs
- Receive discounts to Planting the Future conferences and other herbal events
- Become eligible for community grants and other benefits
Throughout the course, you'll get to:
- Make your own Herbal First Aid Kit
- Create a Materia Medica (your own herbal encyclopedia)
- Make a Foraging Basket
- Visit a traditional Cherokee garden
- Practice working with herbs for various issues, with friends, loved ones, and your community
- Forage wild and medicinal Plants & Mushrooms
- Learn how to create and organize your own home Apothecary
- Practice Plant Meditation for deeper connection with the plants
- Learn to Grow common herbs and Steward wild herbs
- See, Taste, and Try Wild Food Cooking
Be prepared to create lasting relationships with other plant lovers. We will gather together in circle every morning to check in about where we are in our relationships with the world and the plants. Students from herb courses often go on to meet outside of and after school is over, becoming friends, learning from and with each other. Come ready to connect!
You'll graduate with a certificate on Graduation Day, which will include a party potluck and medicine show to celebrate all you've learned and share medicine with your herbie friends.
This is a 3 year program. The second 2 years are not mandatory, but build on the knowledge of the first year, going deeper each year into Botany, Medicine Making, Clinical Herbalism, and more.
Lodging is not included, but there are several local lodging options, including Inns, Airbnb's, and Campgrounds, that will be shared before class begins or can be emailed upon request.
Your Investment in Your Health Empowerment:
- $2,000 if paid in one full payment before January 1, 2022
- $2,250 if paid in one full payment before March 1, 2022
- $2,500 if paid in one full payment before April 1, 2022 (if space is still available)
Payment Plans are available upon request. The total is $2,500 to cover administrative fees, and must be paid in full by April 1, 2022, with a $500 deposit.
Scholarship has been FILLED. One Scholarship position will be available for a BIPOC person.
Work Trade is FULL. (Two partial Work Trade positions will be available, on a first come, first served basis for people with a financial need that would make attendance impossible otherwise, with a $1,000 payment by March 1.)
We welcome all people into the Herb School, including BIPOC, Queer, single parents, and differently abled people (though you will need to be able to hike). Please let us know your needs and concerns, and we'll do our best to accomodate you.
All prospective students will have a Zoom or phone interview with Abby before being accepted into the program, to ensure that you are a good fit for the program and the program is a good fit for you. Contact us to schedule yours now, or with questions.
Refund Policy:
As we are a very small business, we cannot offer refunds, unless we cancel the course. If you have a family or health emergency, and need to drop out of the course before it starts, we will try to offer you a refund, minus a $500 administrative fee, if you or we can find a replacement to take your place. Thanks for your understanding; the tuition supports our family.
