Eco-preneur profile: Lessons to live beside begin on the holding for Shawna Greenway - Family Talk - MLive.com

Shawna Greenway learned firsthand how conspicuous it is championing entrepreneurs to deem in their work. The mother of two began her dodge career selling herbal products online. She was moderately successful, however father she didn't enjoy the work very much.

I was 50 percent into it, and 50 percent not," she said. Whether I'd stuck with it, people would have started to pick up on that. If you don't have that passion representing your work, business is going to suffer."

So Greenway closed the online store, and started searching for another way to focus her entrepreneurial spirit. Around that time, friends and family started asking for her expertise on herbs and traditional foods. She slowly began teaching, offering a few classes on issue affection "Herbal 101" and "Hands-On Medicine Making."

I fell in love with teaching," Greenway recalled. More online • For information on local eco-preneur Shawna Greenway and Weed Dance Farm, visit: Wisdom for eco-preneurs • Stay true to your heart and your passion, and don't be afraid to transform direction if something isn't working. Prompt healthy and take care of yourself so you have the stamina and energy needed to run a business.

Network online through groups, message boards and blogging. Approach comp classes and reduced fees on occasion just to build awareness. Toot your own horn! Talk with confidence about what you do.

I loved getting well-balanced with women, using our hands, yakking and talking. The aggregation setting was correct where I wanted to be, and it conscientious snowballed from there."

She teaches many of the classes and hopes to eventually turn the lodging into a teaching center and retreat space. For now, her work takes her to stores, festivals, homes and backyards. Most of Greenway's classes and private consultations revolve around household food and homesteading skills. She has taught how to raise animals in your backyard, how to butcher a chicken and how to milk a goat.

She takes schoolboy on walks to identify common herbs and teaches them to make everything from soap to cheese. There are some expertise that are just best passed on in person," said Greenway, who studied with Susun Weed and other noted herbalists.

For me personally, my learning accelerates a ton when I can see and put one's hand on and experience something in person, versus just staring at it in a book." Greenway teaches year-round, but summers are her busiest time.

She teaches two or three workshops every month and hosts periodic "moonlodge" events. These fun women-only gatherings are designed to nurture sisterly support and encourage self-examination.

Last summer she hosted a "Weed Skip Weekend," which attracted 16 women from as far away as Arizona for activities like bush walks, herbalism classes, drumming and instruction on subjects like how to constitute barbarian salads.

This year's event is scheduled for Aug. 15-17. Her classes usually solicit to beginners of green living. The girl who wants to make her own soap, her own herbal medicine, her own cheese," said Greenway. That's the kind of person my classes appeal to. When you really participate in these things, they just shift imbued with meaning and connection."

In addition to running Weed Gambol Farm, Greenway and her husband, Chris Hubbarth, homeschool their two sons, Indio, 9, and Benjairo, 7. As a wife and mother, Greenway finds that her business melds wittily with her home life. If I'm grinding flour to practise bread, that benefits my family.

Corresponding corporeality if I'm milking my goats to make cheese, or searching for plants in the woods. This work is completely compatible with raising a family. In all of this, I'm a homemaker. That's what I really love.

The kids are learning right alongside me while I'm preparing for my classes," Greenway said.

From http://blog.mlive.com/familytalk/2008/05/ecopreneur_profile_~.html