About this Event
3-Month Homestead Series: A Practical Guide to Living with the Land
What if homesteading wasn’t a destination to strive for, but a way of being to embody? What if you didn’t even need land to homestead? What if, instead of waiting for years to save up and one day find that “perfect” piece of property, you could begin your journey now? What if…
Welcome to our 3-Month Homestead Series! Join us for an in-person experience where you'll learn practical skills for living off the land. Discover how to grow your own food, raise animals, and become more self-sufficient. Our hands-on workshops will cover topics from gardening to animal husbandry. Whether you're a beginner or already have some experience, this series is designed to help you thrive on your homestead. Come connect with like-minded individuals and embark on this journey with us!
About this workshop
Join us for an intimate and inspiring workshop series where we will explore what it truly means to live more connected to the natural world around us. Though the land is sizable, the actual space where we will demonstrate these practices is a mere 1/4 acre. Our intention for this series is to make living off the land accessible, no matter your experience level, land access, or resources. You’ll learn actionable practices that you can start to implement in your life right away, whether you currently live on land or not.
This series will offer a general overview of homesteading, and considering the natural cycles and seasons of life, we will highlight certain skills during each class, including:
- Creative ways to homestead even if you don’t have land.
- Foraging for wild food and medicine.
- Learning how to DIY projects with reclaimed materials.
- Assessing your land or living situation and designing your homesteading lifestyle.
- Raising and caring for animals.
- Preserving your garden harvest or fresh farmers market tomatoes and peaches at peak ripeness.
- Basic permaculture principals as a way to understand the needs and possibilities of your land.
This series offers an overview of general homesteading practices with a focus on helping you figure out what makes sense for your specific situation. We’ll offer a taste (both literally and figuratively) of what it means to share a sacred connection to the land and natural world around us, going right to the source when it comes to nourishing ourselves and our community.
Homesteading isn’t something we do out of fear or concern for a bleak future; rather, we focus on the simple things in life that just make sense. The more we connect to ourselves and the beauty that nature has to offer, the more we find our life slowly shifts in ways that support not only our own well-being but those around us.
During our time together we will not only learn practical homesteading skills like land design principals and food preservation but we will also look at our mindset to uncover our stories, fears and doubts and the energetics of why we really want to live in this way.
When we live in this way, though we recognize that there is no destination to arrive at, we have come to see that this way of living can also be much more affordable as we start to make the shift from consumer to creator. Not to mention, it’s way more fun and fulfilling.
Homesteading, as we have seen, isn’t about self-sufficiency either. It is not an individual pursuit, it takes a village, a community, one that arises naturally when we come together over shared visions and possibilities and create with an open mind. You don’t have to do this alone, there are others out there, just like you, that want to live in a similar way, we are here to help you make that happen.
Have questions? Feel free to reach out to Yoshua and Aja at [email protected]
“Joshua and Aja opened up their life to us on their beautiful homestead and just shared the ways they live in harmony with their animals and the land. They are so deeply rooted in the methods they showed us; it was amazing material that came through them, rather than was “taught” to us. It was hands on and we always left with our stomachs full of the most delicious in-season snacks, as well as balms and tinctures to take with us. ” — Sheila E
How It Works
Every month you’ll join a small group of people on the You Enjoy Life homestead to learn about a variety of homesteading topics and have hands on experience. We will explore different themes based on what is available in each season, assessing the current needs of our homestead, and you’ll learn skills that you can immediately apply to your own adventures.
During the three main workshops we will do things such as:
- Walk the land and learn about key land design principals and site planning.
- Learn how to assess nature’s patterns and work with what you have, not force our will upon what we think we want.
- We’ll talk about a variety of different compost setups, and learn how to build simple composting systems with reclaimed and affordable materials.
- You’ll learn about medicine making, how to safely identify wild plants in your own backyard and how to turn them into healing tinctures, oils and more.
- While growing food specifically isn’t the main focus of these workshops, we’ll talk about different ways to build out garden beds and work with the soil that you have. You’ll learn simple methods for sourcing high quality local food, preserving food for the winter and ways to cut back on your food bill.
- You’ll learn about raising animals in small spaces, including different options for building housing and fencing to keep your new friends safe and happy.
- We will also have a portion of the workshop where you will envision and dream up your homestead to be. You’ll write about and draw out a plan for either your current space, or to imagine your ideal one. (Even if you don’t have land!)
On top of the three immersive workshops, you will get two additional classes. These classes are not on the schedule as we host them monthly, you’ll be able to sign up for them whenever your schedule permits. You’ll get to pick two of any of our other classes including:
- Beginners sourdough baking
- Fermentation and preservation 101
- Meat curing and sausage making
- Ceremonial animal harvesting
Once you sign up for the series you’ll have access to two of our workshops for free and can sign up for them even before the series begins. More details will be shared with you upon sign up.
Details For the series
Date: April 13 | May 4th | June 1st
Time: 11:00am-2:00pm
Location: The You Enjoy Life Homestead located on North Foothills Hwy in-between Boulder and Lyons (address revealed upon sign up).
Cost: $485 for one, or $450 a person for couples/friend discount (payment plans available).
Further Details: Once payment is processed you will get an email with further details for each workshop.
Contact: Please feel free to reach out to Yoshua with any questions at [email protected] If you need a payment plan, send us an email, we are happy to work something out. We also offer one discounted slot to someone in need.
*Cancellation/Refund Policy. If for some reason you are not able to make the series and let us know one month in advance, you will get a full refund, after that it is non-refundable, however you’d be able to transfer your place to another person. Also, if we sell out and someone on the waiting list wants your ticket, we can do our best to make that happen.
What’s included:
- Three 3 hour immersive workshops on our homestead.
- Two extra workshops from our ongoing classes (sourdough, fermentation, animal harvesting, meat curing).
- PDF with a homesteading guide and our favorite local resources.
- Digital copy of Yoshua’s fermentation and homesteading book.
- Closed Group to ask questions/post pictures/share resources.
- Homemade wild medicine tincture or herbal oil and other homemade goodies.
- We will share homemade sourdough and other homestead goodies during each class. *There are only ten slots to keep the classes intimate. If you have any questions feel free to email us at [email protected]
“Yosh and Aja are of the magic sort, weaving culture in community through sourdough and breaking bread. An active and tactile learning environment, the class was collaborative. And then we gathered around a table of many fermented jewels- kraut, cured meats, cultured butter and cheese, the brilliant yellow of preserved lemons, garlic honey…if you believe me I could continue. And isn’t this the true culturing? Living wisdom of the ancestral roots of food. Chickens in the backyard and conversations about spring water as sacred. The background music is connection and laughter. It’s with full hearted gratitude that I found these two beautiful people breathing life into human relationship with food.” — Jessica Walters
About Yoshua and Aja:
Yoshua Greenfield has been foraging for food for over 15 years, engaged in homesteading for 8 years, and cooking ever since his mom told him, “If you don’t like my cooking, then do it yourself!” He carries a deep passion for teaching others to find inspiring and simple ways to deepen their connection to the things they consume. As a lover of all things nature, he spends much of his time tending to various foods and animals around our home, hiking barefoot in the woods while foraging for medicinal and edible plants, and fermenting and preserving just about everything under the sun. For 7 years, he hosted an alternative cooking show that attracted millions of viewers but eventually left that world behind to focus on connecting with place and community, using food as a vehicle for inspiration, connection, growth, and well-being.
Aja Rose has spent many years in the health and wellness space and has dedicated the past 5 years to immersing into herbal medicine, wild foraging, and gardening. She is deeply passionate about connecting with the ‘medicine of place’ and forming reciprocal relationships with the spirits of the plants and trees we feel naturally drawn to.
Some of her dearest plant allies are Pine, Yarrow, and Rose. Currently, she is most inspired by planting and working with native plants to support local ecosystems. She also loves anything related to food, especially anything she grows or buys locally.
Collectively, we have been tending to the land together for nearly five years, welcomed in our first child Amiya last year, and hold a deep reverence for the sacred land we inhabit (but never truly own). We have discovered that the magic lies in the mundane, the medicine in our connection to place, and the sacred joy and profound peace that comes from being in a state of deep reverence, in a place of careful listening. After noticing how many people in and around Boulder have been feeling deeply burnt out by what we call “the healing trap”—a never-ending cycle of always looking inward to find more things wrong with ourselves to “improve”—we sensed a growing desire of more people wanting to learn practical skills that are inherently healing. We like to say that healing always happens when we are present and listening. In this way, as we move away from the self-obsessed culture of trying to constantly heal things we were told were wrong, we begin to give back, to engage in actions that support not only ourselves but also the people and land around us.
Location
Located just 10 minutes from downtown Boulder, this 5-acre farm property is nestled against the foothills, embodying a collaborative vision born from a deep friendship. With a long-term focus on raising animals, growing food, fermenting and preserving, hosting community farm dinners, offering sacred rest retreats, and creating a sanctuary for children, this space is also a living classroom—teaching us how to live more harmoniously with this sacred land. Here, you'll have the unique opportunity to witness its beginnings and, with time, become an integral part of a growing community for years to come.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
You Enjoy Life Homestead, 8409 N. Foothills Highway, Boulder, United States
USD 485.00
