Please support us to find a home for my flock in the Wild. To build a 'Community Ancient Crafts and Nature Friendly Farming School'.

Hello

I’d be so grateful if you had the time to read through my fundraiser and short proposal / vision. I have recently been put in a poition where i may have to sell over half of my flock of beautiful sheep due to grazing being taken away. I'm desperately looking for other options but i hope to raise enough to at least keep them fed during this drought then see what can be achieved in finding more land to rent or potentially buy.

I’m reaching out in the hope you can help facilitate this community project. Thank you in advance for your valued time and support.

My name English name is Elizabeth. I am also called Iekawehatie which translates as “she paddles along”. This is my adopted Kanienkehaka (mohawk) name. I am a traditional leather hide tanner. I believe, as our ancestors before us and many Indigenous cultures of our planet, that if you are going to consume and eat an animal, you must honour it’s body and soul by using every part of its body in sacrifice after a happy, stress free life. Tanning is an ancient craft, of which there only a handful of traditional tanneries left in the entire united kingdom. I hope to continue to establish my 'Wild Hides Tannery’ (c) to further learn this craft and pass on my knowledge to others who want to learn. I blade shear my sheep the old way and make Wild crafted rugs from their fleeces which sell across the world..

I am a single parent, having home schooled my son and I trained as a Dancer in my previous career.I am also a photographer with a great passion for wolf conservation, justice for minority and indigenous nations and women’s rights. I use Ancient and ancestral skills with my work and educate / show others a way to live simply in connection with the earth and our animal relatives through workshops and retreatsThe Challenges

I am not fortunate to be born of farming stock with a family network in the industry, or have land to inherit or security. Though I have encountered so much incredible kindness along my journey, in many ways I wouldn’t still be here now with the sheep I currently have if it wasn’t for their support.

However, still I find myself doing so much alone, and we weren’t born to live and die alone. The time of the Lone Wolf has passed. We need people, I need community to share with and gain from. I am at a crossroads now, that if something doesn’t change I risk losing my flock and all I have worked and strived for years for will be lost. With huge rises in living costs, fuel, feed, and a lack of suitable grazing I hope, with the help of this wonderful community we can turn this around. But I can’t do this without your support.

I have spent years coping with little or no facilities, begging for scraps of land to use to feed my sheep, which are my family, not just a flock. Driven thousands of miles to check, move and feed my animals because the only land I have access to is miles away from my current home. Knocked on countless doors for opportunities or chances to establish a vision that I believe so strongly in and the world needs to bring healing and knowledge to our fractured planet. This Vision isn’t just MY dream to find a home for my flock, so I can be alongside them everyday. It is to establish a Wild Earth Community for anyone to access, mothers, daughters, son’s and fathers of every nation, on our one planet to feel they have found home amongst the friendly cuddles of my sheep and the surrounding arms of our Mother Nature.

Please read on to hear more about;

Fiáin - Wild Earth Vision, Foundation and Purpose.

“ Man sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health.Then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present of the future; he lives as if he is never going to die. And then dies having never really lived.” Dalai Lama

I am looking to care for 10+ acres, preferably with a mix of woodland and pasture to set up camp and be a true shepherd to my sheep, after many years of struggling to sustain this life with no land of my own or farming family to back me. I know how to salvage road-kill, forage, live off-grid.

During this phase of settlement and transition of un-learning modern day comfort and coping mechanisms, I intend to establish a sanctuary for people, especially (but not exclusively) women to come to a place of rewilding not only their physical environment, but their garden of the mind. A place of safety where people of all backgrounds can bring their story, share it, be listened to and be healed. Then leave this place to write a new story of their true, authentic self. The key to changing our world and restoring balance to our earth is to begin with alliance of self, then collectively we can join forces and reverse the decline of our spiralling extinction.

Away from the fast paced pressures and stress of life and family, work, this will be like transitioning back to wilderness, tranquility, fire circles, workshops and retreats. A place to dance, express, sing. A place to start rebuilding our lost connections with nature and our ancestral circadian ways.

I would like to create a space in relationship with the land to grow our own food through the season and to also my sheep will conservation graze the land for the benefit of nature. (mob grazing, heritage breed foragers) Through regenerative agricultural methods. To also form a collection of wild medicines from mother nature and establish a small scale apothecary and re-learn the knowledge and ways of Herbalism passed down to us by our Grandmothers..

The dream would be to initially live in a large bell tent or yurt/ shepherds hut, then in the future self build a small cob house, or two, dependant on permissions and availability. These would be built with local connections, women’s refuge centre, school, single parent focus. A great way to engage in ancestral crafts which stimulate conservation in the mind and peace in the spirit.

Then central to this will be education, the practicing of heritage crafts. Workshops on foraging, and natural plant dying. Cordage and basket making. Making clothes from buckskin and creating natural willow structures. Hopefully a willow or hazel coppice or orchard on site or plant one.

On the same site I intend to continue building my "Wild Hides Tannery" and offering apprenticeships for peoplke to come and learn this ancient craft. Alongside this will be the "Shepherd's School" where I will teach young and old how to raise sheep and cover all aspects of animal husbandry, in connection with nature and focusing on Natural, homeopathic and herbal treatments and remedies.

As mentioned, I come from a non farming/ countryside background, but so far all of the experience I have gained over the years has bought me to this point with the skills I’ve gained, to embrace and strive for a project like this.

Very much of this is a dream that’s been building for very many years, but almost every corner I turn there are obstacles and so little opportunity to create a much needed sanctuary like this, unless you’re born into farming or have inherited land.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read my proposal and I’d be extremely grateful for any support you can offer to achieve this dream.

Blessings

Skennen Kowa (Great Peace)

Wild Wool Shepherdess