Join the Southwestern high desert homesteading renaissance.
The Earth Tribes Homesteading Retreat
May 21-25, 2026
Expert workshops, fresh local food, and inspiring connection with a network of homesteaders committed to a regenerative future in the Arizona White Mountains.
It’s time to gather communities together.
Just starting your homesteading journey? Looking for likeminded land stewards? Hoping to expand your self-reliance skills?
External circumstances (social, economic, political, family relationships, etc.) are very fluid these days for all of us, but that should not stop us from manifesting our dreams. We have seen too many examples of highly motivated folks who rush out of the city unprepared for a new lifestyle, their enthusiasm slowly eroded away by exhaustion, frustration and a lack of information about their community and about themselves.
We designed this retreat to help you envision your homesteading future, both at the personal and community levels. We choose to hold the retreat over four days because we feel that is enough time to sense the holistic nature of homesteading.
This lifestyle redefines time. Meeting other like-minded future homesteaders and sharing your ideas and stories is key to your learning.
Discover likeminded community. Expand your knowledge. Envision your homesteading future.
Attend the Earth Tribes Homesteading Retreat.
Thursday, May 21st – Monday, May 25th, 2026
Hosted by Clark and Barbara Hockabout at Lodestar Gardens Learning Center in Concho, Arizona.
Cost: $80 per ticket, or $20/day
What’s included: Accessing 4 full days of workshop, learning from 35 expert instructors across 27 presentations on a wide variety of homesteading topics, and networking with local & like-minded Southwestern land stewards of all ages and backgrounds.
Our Topics:
- Cultivating the Homesteader Mindset – Building the Dream, Leaving the City and Corporate World, Education, Attracting Younger Homesteaders, WWOOFing, Future Homesteading Opportunities, Growing a Community for Food Security
- Food Processing and Storing – Garden to Pantry Processing, Pressure Canning, Ferments, Drying, Freeze-Drying, Dehydrating, Root Cellaring, Pantry Organizing
- Growing Food – Soil-building in the High Desert, Manure, Aquaponics, Biochar, Creating a Local Food Producing Business, Greenhouse Design, Mycelium
- Animal-Human Relationships – Animal Husbandry (Cows, Sheep, Rabbits, Ducks, Turkeys, Goats, Chickens), Hide Tanning, The Art of Bow Hunting, High-Desert Hunting
- Communication – Radio
- Alternative Building Approaches – Straw bale Construction Tips, Limestone Plaster, Steel Container
- Health and Medical Self-Reliance – Herbal Remedies, Creating an Apothecary, Dowsing, Acupressure for Pain Management, Emergency Medical Kits
- Specialty Growing – The Art of Sprouting, Tree Growing in the High Desert, Native Seeds, Mushrooms
- Working with Regional Law – Guide to Property Purchasing
- Alternative Energy – Solar and Wind Developments, Wind Generator Takedown, Irrigation Systems, Small-Scale Energy Use
On Site Activities:
- Booths
- Daily Beginner Tai Chi
- Labyrinth Walks
- Explore the Homestead
- Find the Resting Benches by the Pond, on hilltops, and in the trees
- Yard Games
- Talk to the Animals
- Make Something at the Art Corner
- Evening Music & Singing in the Food Court
- Submit an original Homesteader poem or lyric for the concluding ceremony
- Bring your bikes
- Bring your cameras
- Campfires subject to local fire restrictions
Attendees are invited to stay and dine on-site for a fully immersive retreat experience. Available ticket add-ons:
- Add $125 meal ticket for four days of farm fresh daily meals (totaling 12 meals for ~$10/meal) or pay per meal, as follows:
- May 21
- Lunch (with vegetarian options) 12-1 pm $10
- Supper (with vegetarian options) 5-7pm $20
- May 22-24
- Continental Breakfast 9-10:30am $5
- Lunch (with vegetarian options) 12-1 pm $10
- Supper (with vegetarian options) 5-7pm $20
- May 25
- Continental Breakfast 9-10:30am $5
- May 21
- Add $10-50/night for your selected on-site camping, glamping, RV hookups, or cabin housing for all group sizes. Housing is first come, first serve––based on your reservation date. Lodestar’s housing options:
- Self-sufficient loft apartment that sleeps 4 (for parties of 2-4 people) – $50/night ($200 total)
- Self-sufficient Airstream trailer (2-3 people) – $35/night ($140 total) – Booked
- Campground with 6 sites and tents provided (water & portapotty available) – $10/night ($40 total) – 5/6 still available
- Dormatory 2nd story – sleeping space (cots, futons) – $10/night ($40 total)
- 2 RV hook ups – $10/night ($40 total)
Payment Due Dates:
We request that you pay for meal tickets & lodgings by May 9th (Zelle to Barbara, bhockabout@gmail.com) to support food purchase & site preparation. Attendee tickets ($80) are due by retreat start May 21st. Feel free to pay in full via Zelle or cash (if local) at any time. We welcome any donations, as we are an unsponsored, community-supported organization.
Learn in-person from local experts who walk their talk.
We designed Earth Tribes for two reasons. First, to offer future homesteaders a host of current, reliable information, research, and options to help them create a new life. Not only do we teach from our 26 years’ experience developing a off-grid, high desert homestead, but we have invited numerous other homesteading specialists and generalists to share their expertise in in permaculture, animal husbandry, herbal healing, native plants, alternative energy, construction, business, and more. Connecting with other future homesteaders, face-to-face, is the most effective way to catapult our learning, inspire our imaginations, and make valuable connections. Many ideas are generated when like-minded folks gather and share their questions, observations and stories.
Daily Retreat Schedule:
Share the word with friends, neighbors, and other budding homesteaders:
Still a beginner? Start your homesteading journey with support & inspiration.
The retreat will also provide participants with an experiential understanding of the Homesteading Apprenticeship Program (HAP) to be launched April 2027. In addition to gaining a greater understanding of our homesteading curriculum, you will also meet our land, gardens, animals, local area and homesteaders, and of course, us.
As we are firm believers in the power of experience, face-to-face communication, first-hand observation, we want to offer you the opportunity to feel the farm and our high desert, holistic version of homesteading. No household or piece of property is the same. We don’t believe Best Practices in homesteading exist for everyone.
An Added Bonus: Our Location
If you are considering locating your homestead in the Southwest, we remind you that Lodestar Gardens may be a good place to start your investigation of the region. Our homestead is located in a pristine and remote area surrounded by plentiful geographical, anthropological, and archeological local sites, three Native American Indian Reservations, three forest service regions notable for hiking, biking, and horseback riding.
While very rural, our farm is also located within 35 minutes of the largest townships in this part of the state (Show Low, Pinetop, and Lakeside), within 5 hours of 5 major cities (Phoenix, Tucson, Flagstaff, Sedona, Albuquerque, and Santa Fe), 25 minutes from the Show Low Airport (Contour Airlines), within 4 hours of two international airports (Phoenix and Albuquerque), within two hours of Interstate 49, the Amtrak train, and Greyhound bus stations (Holbrook). We feel blessed to have the best of two worlds.
Additional details you’ll learn:
- Solar energy systems – replacing lead-acid batteries with lithium batteries. We will have a two-hour presentation on solar systems with solar/wind experts in our area.
- When you visit we will still be working on completing a dormitory for our future HAP students built with straw bale construction and limestone plaster walls. We will have a session to explain our process and design.
- In addition to the straw bale construction, over the years we have experimented with steel container housing, underground root cellars, a modified earth-ship inspired casita, a variety of weatherizing techniques. We will share our opinions about these various structures in an hour presentation.
- We built a fertigation pond 12 years ago. It holds 90,000 gallons of water pumped out of our well. It has small fish, plant life, and lots of birds who contribute to the organic matter that infuses the water and irrigates our gardens. That water is transported via small pumps powered by solar panels and transported by a ground drip system.
- Water catchments and water retention techniques – roof tanks, gravity feed, mulching, draught-resistant crops
- Solar electric and solar water pumping.
- A variety of methods to extend our very short growing season including a hoop house, high tunnel (72’x32’x15’), outside sun and wind protection measures (hoops & netting, row covers, walls of waters, mulching, etc.)
- A variety of solar cooking and solar dehydrating devices and processes.
- We make 1/3 of our soil amendments. We will have a session on soils and amendments.
- Chicken and goat raising. We look to supplement our animal feed with grain and sunflower seed production next year on a tilled acre on which we previously experimented with green manure and fodder crops.
- We sold to restaurants and local markets since 2004. We will share our harvesting, food processing, packaging and food regulations in an hour presentation during the retreat.
- Community building strategies. Our experience creating a food co-op, equipment sharing, work parties, finding labor assistance, neighborhood festivals and pot lucks.