Current Course Instructors

Jason Thimmesch

Jason and Jennelle Thimmesch moved to Vernon County four years ago from Dubuque, Iowa. Currently, they seek a rural lifestyle with their four children on a 30 acre diversified organic farm near Avalanche. They grow vegetables, sheep, and chickens and have begun a variety of permaculture projects, including new plantations of grapes and hazelnuts.

Jason Thimmesch teaches:

Kathryn Ashley-Wright

Kathryn Ashley-Wright has knitted since she was 7 years old in first grade at Pleasant Ridge Waldorf School. In college she learned to spin and quickly afterwards started a flock of sheep and founded Ewetopia Fiber Shop in Viroqua, WI. She lives in La Farge now with a husband, 2 daughters and a large flock of sheep bred for superior wool and tasty meat. Dyeing has become a passion and unique facet to her yarn shop in Viroqua.

Kathryn Ashley-Wright teaches:

Corina Bergan

Corina 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, five cats, one dog, twenty-four cows, and a few dozen chickens.  After arriving on the farm four 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:

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:

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 and Cameron Genter live on a solar powered biodynamic farm in Cashton, WI. They have a seasonal grass-based dairy with a small herd of American Milking Devon and Jersey cows, a few pastured pigs, and a small flock of chickens. They have been involved and biodynamics and various aspects of organic agriculture for the past 12 years. Daphne’s skills include farmstead cheesemaking, vegetable farming, and whole-grain sourdough bread baking. Cameron’s skills include biodynamic vegetable/dairy farming, working draft horses, and pasture/grazing management.

Daphne Kingsley 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:

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:

Cameron Genter

Daphne Kingsley and Cameron Genter live on a solar powered biodynamic farm in Cashton, WI. They have a seasonal grass-based dairy with a small herd of American Milking Devon and Jersey cows, a few pastured pigs, and a small flock of chickens. They have been involved and biodynamics and various aspects of organic agriculture for the past 12 years. Daphne’s skills include farmstead cheesemaking, vegetable farming, and whole-grain sourdough bread baking. Cameron’s skills include biodynamic vegetable/dairy farming, working draft horses, and pasture/grazing management.

Cameron Genter teaches:

Lauren Hunt

Lauren Hunt lives near Readstown, WI with her family on a small homestead where she and her husband are avid gardeners. She has worked in the world of produce for over 10 years: as a farm apprentice on several small CSA’s, a produce clerk at the Viroqua Food Co-op, and as a home gardener. Her interest in root cellaring and food preservation inspired her to come up with the root cellaring course.

Lauren Hunt teaches:

Dodie Whitaker

Dodie Whitaker is a classically trained singer who loves to sing and teach a great variety of musical styles and genres. Before relocating to Viroqua in 2009, she spent fifteen years living and working in the Chicago area, performing with the Chicago Symphony and Lyric Opera choruses, leading vocal workshops and teaching singing to folks of all ages. A recent co-founder of Moonbeam Theatre, which offers classes to children in the Driftless region, she is a member of the Ridgetones and the Festival Singers of Pleasant Ridge and performs regularly with the Underground Players and Raw Milk Improv. She currently teaches voice both privately and at Youth Initiative High School, and is excited to be leading her first workshop at the Driftless Folk School.

Dodie Whitaker teaches:

David S. Cargo

David S. Cargo is one of the founding members of the Saint Paul Bread Club, a former baker at Trotter’s Café and Bakery and the St. Agnes Baking Company, and a featured baker in Kim Ode’s cookbook, Baking with the Saint Paul Bread Club: Recipes, Tips, and Stories.

David S. Cargo teaches:

Amorin Mello

Amorin Mello grew up with the north woods and drifting snow banks of Bayfield County where he first learned to craft art with natural resources. Amorin is a permaculture activist and has led natural building projects with Burners Without Borders, Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival, Lake Superior Traditional Ways Gathering, Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, and Northland College. Amorin has previously served both the Bad River and Red Cliff Bands of Lake Superior Chippewa through AmeriCorps*VISTA, and currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Chequamegon Bay Habitat for Humanity. Amorin is a resource for families that are building their own earthen homes.

Amorin Mello teaches:

Marty Leenhouts

Marty Leenhouts is a trained educator with over 25 years of chip carving experience. As the owner of My Chip Carving, Marty seeks to inspire, instruct, and equip chip carvers all over the world. The beauty and wonder that first drew Marty into this style of carving still pulls on him today. It is his desire to pass on the joy of chip carving to as many other people as possible. Marty was born and raised in Wisconsin and currently lives in south central Minnesota. He and his wife also own and operate Red Barn Retreats, where he teaches chip carving classes and quilters, scrapbookers, family groups, weddings, and others gather for various retreat events.

Marty Leenhouts teaches:

Carol Willis

Over the last 30 years of raising a large family with the desire to use natural methods for health care purposes and for food, Carol has grown lots of herbs, vegetables, and a few trees. She has started most from seed, and some from cuttings. Since 2001 Carol has manufactured herbal teas, tinctures, and salves with a goal of growing all the herbs used in her products. This goal has been approximately 80% realized. She says that she is thrilled at the opportunity to share what she has learned.

Carol Willis teaches:

Matthew Voz

Matthew Voz received his Master’s Degree in Rural and Agricultural History from Iowa State University. He teaches History, English, and other Humanities courses at the Youth Initiative High School. He has lived in Viroqua for eight years.

Matthew Voz teaches:

Jon Passi

Jon Passi is an educator and advocate for alternative and sustainable technologies, with 30 years construction experience who moved to the area 5 years ago in order to build a nearly zero-energy, off-grid, super-insulated house utilizing photovoltaics for power, solar for water and radiant floor heating, and wind power to pump water. Now that the house is done, he has turned his construction background to the field of sustainability and alternative energy education, starting the “Green House Sustainable Living Center” out of his new home, working with WDRT community radio to help create a series of sustainability radio segments, and starting work on a book about the alternative houses in the Driftless area, while trying to live light on the earth. He is presently working toward certification as a domestic solar hot water, and domestic photovoltaic assessor for the state of Wisconsin.

Jon Passi teaches:

Maureen Karlstad

Maureen Karlstad has been involved with teaching and pottery for over 30 years. After graduating her second class from Pleasant Ridge Waldorf School in Viroqua, she now spends more time working and teaching in her pottery studio.

Maureen Karlstad teaches:

William M. Lasko

Bill is a dyed-in-the-wool self-sufficiency, DIY log builder and teacher that believes that self-determination is the key to true freedom and liberty. Teaching others from all over North America the traditional skills needed to utilize their own timber and make what they need for shelter, furniture and even income. With nearly thirty years of leading small groups in hands-on log building workshops, bill’s approach is to keep it simple and easy to understand while reinforcing self-confidence and helping students in mastering the requisite skills. A former member of the Board of Directors for the Great Lakes Log Crafters Association, Bill developed more advanced state and federally approved log builder training programs in Indiana and is recognized by the US Veterans Administration as the only vocational school of log building in North America offering and teaching log builder training programs. You can see class photos, student testimonials and much more at www.LaskoSchoolofLogBuilding.com.

William M. Lasko teaches:

Vince Hundt

Vince grew up as the tenth of thirteen children on a small dairy farm near Middle Ridge, WI. With his wife Dawn, he has operated his 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 Hundt teaches:

Dan Johnson

Dan Johnson is the owner of Midwest Earth Builders (MEB) a company specializing in construction that incorporates natural building materials and energy efficient design. Midwest Earth Builders produces a masonry block made from local clay soils that was recognized as one of the top ten sustainable building products in 2008 by Sustainable Industries Magazine. Dan has also consulted and worked on some of Iowa and Wisconsin’s most innovative green buildings. He lives on a small farm in northern Crawford county where he raises a few steers, grows raspberries, restores prairie and tends a small flock of chickens. Check out Midwest Earth Builders at www.midwestearthbuilders.com.

Dan Johnson teaches:

Jessica Hooper

Jessica Hooper has fifteen years of experience in fashion and accessory design. She studied fashion design in Los Angeles while costuming for large theatre productions. Soon after she began her own small clothing line, constructing one of a kind garments from reclaimed textiles. She has made custom pieces for performing artists and celebrities including Carmen Electra, garments for Pink on her world tour and the stage shirt that Michael Franti performed in at Obama’s inaugural ball. She was featured in Apparel News as an up and coming designer with a fresh approach to fashion.

Jessica moved to Viroqua 6 years ago with her family, and has continued her passion for transforming the reclaimed, now focusing on one of a kind handbags. Her new work is influenced by the rich heritage of traditional craft in the Midwest, and the incredible history of hand worked textiles. Jessica finds her greatest inspirations in the small beauties of everyday life, the delights of unexpected combinations and the discovery of happy accidents.

Jessica Hooper teaches:

John Fergus

John Fergus is a designer and energy efficiency expert. John has a degree in engineering and has worked in building design and construction for
nearly thirty years. He has extensive training and experience in conservation technologies, building and structural sciences as well as renewable energy. John is a designer and energy consultant with E3 Coalition in Viroqua Wisconsin.

John Fergus teaches:

Joli Dace

Joli began keeping bees two years ago to aid garden pollination and to secure a local sugar source for canning and brewing. She has been involved with a local beekeeping club and is excited to pass on her newly-obtained knowledge to other beginning beekeepers.

Joli Dace teaches:

Garin Fons

Is the lead butcher and salami maker for the Underground Food Collective. The Collective’s meat business, Underground Meats, cures more than 1000 pounds of salami and charcuterie per month.

Garin Fons teaches:

Lamar Janes

Lamar Janes has been involved in cooperative ventures in the areas of housing, natural foods retail, food production, music or sailing since 1972. He has been a member of Dancing Waters since 1982. He currently is a board member and bookkeeper for several local non-profit organizations.

Lamar Janes 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:

Sofya Blyum-Hundt

Sofya grew up in Baku, Azerbaijan, in the former USSR. She graduated from the American University in Bulgaria, before coming to Viroqua in 2003. She taught in Viroqua’s Waldorf schools, before turning to writing,farming, translation work, and raising a family. Sofya and her husband Jacob Hundt have a small farm and vineyard near Viroqua, where they live with their two children Josie (5) and Cyrus (2). Sofya also is the author of a blog on food, family, photography, and country living, entitled The Girls’ Guide to Guns and Butter.

Sofya Blyum-Hundt 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 over a decade and has been teaching this lost art for over 10 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:

Nicholas Gale

Still a young man, Nicolas has been an enthusiast of the natural world and outdoor living since he was a child. Raised in the Kickapoo Valley, the Mississippi Valley, and the foothills of Appalachia, he has taken his childhood joys and hobbies and developed a life based on living in the outdoors, meeting his basic needs from the Earth’s offerings, and sharing the basic awareness and skills necessary to this lifestyle. Nicolas credits his skills and world outlook to an upbringing by outdoorsy, artistic, and resourceful parents; a year and a half spent immersed in a Native Skills encampment in Northern Wisconsin; and time spent traveling by foot in the United States and abroad. Family life has tempered his dreaming and grounded him in the quest to live a true life and support himself by sharing his passions and lifeway.

Nicholas Gale 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:

Jacob Hundt

Jacob grew up on a Driftless Region dairy farm near Coon Valley. He was one of the founding students of the Youth Initiative High School in Viroqua, where he currently teaches humanities, sciences, and more. He attended Deep Springs College in California, where he worked as a cowboy before receiving a BA in History from the American University in Bulgaria and an MA in Social Science from the University of Chicago. Jacob and his wife Sofya Blyum-Hundt have a small farm and vineyard near Viroqua, where they live with their two children Josie and Cyrus. Jacob is one of the founders of the Driftless Folk School.

Jacob Hundt 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:

Thomas Latané

Tom Latané has been fascinated by the traditional hand forging techniques ever since he first made nails at his backyard hearth in the early 1970s. Today, he is still more intrigued by the work historic smiths were able to produce with basic hand tools than he is by the potential of modern technology. At their shop in Pepin, WI, Tom and his wife Kitty repair antiques and produce their own work in iron, tin, wood, and fiber, using methods and design vocabularies appropriate to different historic traditions. Tom and Kitty call their shop T+C Latané and you can view their website here.

Thomas Latané 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.

Chuck Meyer 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 Schulz has been blacksmithing since 1996, focusing on the techniques of traditional joinery. He has been a student of many great smiths including Bill Fiorini, Chuck Patrick, Jim Batson, Tom Latane, Clay Spencer, Peter Ross, and has taken intensive internships at the John C. Campbell Folk School (N.C.) and Tillers International (MI). Along with blacksmithing, Robert and his family are homesteading their off-the-grid SW Wisconsin land practicing natural building techniques, draft horse power, and organic agriculture. Robert is also co-founder of the Driftless Folk School.

Robert Schulz teaches:

Mark Shepard

Mark Shepard is the CEO of Forest Agriculture Enterprises and runs New Forest Farms, the 104 acre perennial agricultural forest considered by many to be one of the most ambitious sustainable agricultural projects in the United States. New Forest Farm is a planned conversion of a typical row-crops grain farm into a commercial-scale, perennial agricultural ecosystem using oak savannah, sucessional brushland and eastern woodlands as the ecological models. Trees, shrubs, vines, canes, perennial plants and fungi are planted in association with one another to produce food (for humans and animals) fuel, medicines, and beauty. Hazelnuts, chestnuts, pine nuts, walnuts and various fruits are the primary woody crops. The farm is entirely solar and wind powered and farm equipment is powered with locally grown, used vegetable oil that does not remove food from the human food chain. Trained in mechanical engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, Mass and ecology at Unity College in Maine, Mark has developed and patented equipment for the cultivation, harvesting and processing of forest derived agricultural products for human foods and bio fuels production. Mark was certified as a Permaculture designer in 1993 and received his Diploma of Permaculture design from Bill Mollison, the founder of the international Permaculture movement. Mark serves on the board of the Southwest Badger Resource Conservation and Development Council. He teaches agroforestry and Permaculture worldwide. Mark is a 15 yr farmer-member of the Organic Valley cooperative, the worlds largest Organic Farmer’s marketing co-op, and is the founder and chief Cydermaker for the Shepard’s Hard Cyder winery in Viola, Wisconsin.

Mark Shepard teaches:

Rice Spann

Rice lives on a small homestead with his wife and two children in rural Viroqua. He has been keeping bees for twenty years.

Rice Spann teaches: