ADULT PROGRAMS ARE BACK
We believe in a reciprocal relationship between community and skill building, finding that community enriches the adoption of new skills and skills enrich community.
Whether you join us for a single workshop or one of our extended earth skills programs, we welcome you into our community and hope you will take what you have learned back to yours.
Adult Earth skills
Now enrolling! Courses start Sept., 2025
Selected Saturdays (dates below)
AGES 18+
10:00AM – 4:00PM
WINTER TRACKING
Evening class and 1-day workshop
January 23 – 24, 2026
AGES 18+
6:00PM – 8:00PM and 9:00AM – 3:30PM
Intro to Hide Tanning
2-Day Workshop
May 23 – 24, 2026
AGES 18+
9:00AM – 5:00PM
Winter Tracking Workshop 2026
Ages 18+ | Jan. 23 6 – 8pm and Jan 24 9am – 3:30pm
Locations: TBD
Instructor: Jed Jordan (see bio on our people page)
Long-time tracking instructors Jed Jordan and Jason Hamilton will review the foundations of mammal track identification, and then guide you through some of the best tracking hot spots our area has to offer. You and other participants will practice the art of seeing and identifying the clues left behind by all the creatures out there, with instruction and coaching for all experience levels. This workshop will also demonstrate replicable teaching methods for anyone looking to teach tracking to others.
Includes one evening of indoor instruction and a full day of field studies in multiple wildlife areas. Grab your thermos and bag lunch and come join the fun!
Winter Tracking Workshop 2026:
$150 – $250
INTRODUCTION TO HIDE TANNING
Ages 18+ | May 23 and 24, 2026 9am-5pm
Locations: 4-H Acres, Lower Creek Road, Ithaca, NY
Instructor: Danielle Prizzi (see bio on our people page).
Photo credit: Danielle Prizzi and Lyla White
In this 2 day introductory tanning workshop, we will be transforming local white-tailed deer hides into buckskin using the smoke tanning method.
Participants will practice:
- bucking a hide
- fleshing & graining – wet scraping method
- prepping the hide for applying fat emulsion
- framing & dry scraping
- rehydrating & stretching
- smoking a hide
In addition to processing the hides we will discuss methods for storage and preservation of fresh hides, creating your own at-home hide step up, and future hide tanning opportunities.
Background:
The process of turning animal skins into usable cloth or leather is a universal earth living skill, very likely in all of our ancestral lineages in some form. Regionally adapted methods of tanning hides, using the earth-based resources provided, have been a part of human existence for thousands of years! More recently evident in history, indigenous cultures all across the world still use/used the entire animal when processing them, turning raw hides into usable cloth. The warm, soft, durable and water-resistant buckskin being a highly valued resource for clothing, structures, vessels, shoes etc.
Tanning hides in old, natural, from the Earth ways using smoke, bark, brains, eggs, soap, salt, oil and minerals is having a slow revival. Over the last two centuries, much of the specific land-based nuance of tanning hides regionally has been lost due to the invention of chromium and harsh chemical tanning has dominated tanneries all over the world, having huge environmental impacts.
Hide tanning is physically (and often emotionally) enduring, hard and smelly work! This skill requires patience, persistence, and self-care. We will be working in a deeply heart-centered, intentional and held way, where Danielle will pass along my personal rituals around animal processing. Her intention is to make sure everyone feels comfortable and informed as this process is for your learning. Taking a break to stretch and move your body, root yourself in the Earth, and step away is always welcome. The deer hides provided were all sourced from local hunters.
Hide Tanning Fee:
$250 – $350
About the Instructor:
Danielle Prizzi is an ancestral earth skills guide, craftswoman, an earth-centered somatic healing practitioner, community herbalist, naturalist, and a humbly radical homesteader, who weaves together a deep connection with each step. She has dedicated my life to living the skills that she teachs. Through embodying ancestral skills as the foundation of her life, she has been facilitating workshops and programs for everyone from kids to adults for the last 12 years and offers private earth skills & hide tanning mentorship.
Photo credit: Danielle Prizzi and Lyla White
Adult Earth Skills Series
Ages 18+ |Select Saturdays 10:00AM – 4:00PM
Location: 4-H Acres, 418Lower Creek Road, Ithaca and various other locations TBD.
Learn and practice traditional earth skills in a community of dedicated learners and teachers. Build and camp out in your own natural shelter. Gather food from the landscape and cook it over a fire you made without matches. Learn the basics of archery and other natural hunting methods and how to process animals and tan hides. Develop observation skills and routines so you can learn from the land and be a self-sufficient naturalist.
Get to know local trees and plants that provide food, fiber, fuel, tools and medicine. Take on advanced projects such as bow and basket making, stone hatchets, ropes and more. And above all else have fun! Our ancestors learned through stories, songs and games, and so will we. Find out why laughter and community are the most powerful survival skills of all. Each season has its own opportunities and challenges and each session in this series is geared towards what the land is offering and what we must do to thrive with it.
Scroll down for more details. register for a single season or all three
Adult Earth Skills Fall 2025 SESSION
Fall is a time for celebrating abundance and preparing for winter. Join us as the season changes and learn what it takes to provide shelter, water, fire, and food in the wild Autumn woods. Then put your skills to use preparing a foraged feast for our optional overnight camp out on November 8-9.
In this session we will gather and store high calorie Fall foods, learn fire skills including cooking and matchless fire, and build a shelter that can keep us warm and dry through the coldest winter storms. We will explore traditional hunting skills and tools, and participants will have the option to learn about animal processing and hide tanning. Carving, making cordage from natural fibers, and coal burning wooden containers will help build our traditional tool kit along the way.
There is nothing like the confidence that comes from providing your basic needs from the natural landscape around you. Come with us as we deepen our relationship to a life lived a little wilder.
Our Basecamp and main teaching location will be 4-H Acres, 418 Lower Creek Rd Ithaca. Other locations for foraging to be announced. A pre-program email will give details of where we will meet and what to bring.
**Optional overnight campout November 8-9
Skills covered:
- Foraging Fall wild edibles
- Campfire cooking
- Building winter shelters
- Throwing Sticks
- Aidless navigation and direction finding
- Skinning and hide tanning
- Carving
- Fire skills including bow drill fire starting (without matches)
- Making cordage from natural fibers
Dates:
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- Sep. 13 and 27
- Oct. 11 and 25
- Nov. 8 and 22
- Dec. 6
Fall 2025 Price: $685-$785
Adult Earth Skills Winter 2026 SESSION
Winter is a time to gather around the fire for crafting and telling stories. It is also a time to explore the snowy landscape and get to know the trees and tracks that are all around us. In this session we will enter the invisible world of animals through the art of tracking. We will learn to recognize the traces left behind by the creatures that share our winter woods and discover the secrets of fishers and bobcats. We will also focus on learning our trees by bark and bud. They will help us navigate and provide wood for crafts and fires. The advanced craft of this session is an atlatl and dart set. We will collect materials and learn the skills to make and use these ancient hunting tools. Depending on the weather, we will end the season with a harvest of maple syrup.
Know the trees as old friends and the snow covered earth as a book of ancient stories. Come with us into the Winter Woods.
Our Basecamp and main teaching location will be 4-H Acres 418 Lower Creek Rd Ithaca. Other locations for exploring and foraging TBD. A pre-camp email will give details of where we will meet and what to bring.
Skills Covered:
- Animal Tracking (clear print identification, animal gaits, animal behavior)
- Winter tree identification and uses (tree id by Bark bud and twig, twig anatomy, tree biology and ecology, growth habits)
- Carving an atlatl and dart set and learning to use it
- Aidless navigation and direction findings
- Routines of nature awareness and learning the landscape
- Carving
- Fire skills including bow drill fire starting (without matches)
- Making Cordage from natural fibers
Dates:
-
- Jan 10 and 24
- Feb. 7 and 28
- March 21
Winter 2026 Price:$545-$645
Adult Earth Skills Spring 2026 SESSION
Spring is the time of returning birds, ephemeral flowers and warming weather. Survival becomes easier and gloves and boots are put away for the year. It’s time to look ahead and start advanced long term projects and crafts. In this session we will focus on crafting handmade bows and arrows.
The traditional wooden longbow is legendary for its power and accuracy. For thousands of years all across the globe the longbow has built nations, fed families, protected homes and provided sport for people of all descriptions. Today this elemental tool continues to earn its singular place in history as a form of functional art that is just as effective and beautiful now as it was in the hands of our ancestors.
This Spring the Adult Earth Skills Series will dive deep into the art of wooden bow making. With more than 30 years of experience, our instructors will guide you through the process from identifying and harvesting a good “bow-tree” through final tillering and shooting your finished longbow. Using traditional techniques and simple hand tools you will craft a custom wooden bow suitable for hunting or target archery. Making arrows, arm-guards, and finger tabs will also be covered so you will be leaving with a complete archery set and the knowledge to continue your natural archery journey on your own.
There is really nothing like shooting a beautiful bow that you crafted with gratitude from living wood. Come with us as we follow our ancestors into the adventurous world of natural archery!
Our Basecamp and main teaching location will be 4-H Acres 418 Lower Creek Rd Ithaca. Other locations for exploring and foraging TBD. A pre-camp email will give details of where we will meet and what to bring.
Skills Covered:
- Making long bows from harvested trees
- Learning the basics of archery using the instinctive aiming method
- Making willow arrows
- Making arm guards and finger tabs
- Hand tool use: hatchet, rasp, scraper, carving knives
- Bow string making using the Flemish twist method.
Dates:
-
- April 11 and 25
- May 9 and 30
- June 13
Spring 2026 Price: $545-$645