Join Len Villano, a man who has spent more hours in the field than most creatures he photographs, to learn and practice wildlife photography skills in the summer season! He’ll share practical techniques, field-tested instincts, and a lifetime’s worth of stories—along with a few lessons learned the hard way—so you can improve not just your images, but your experience of being out there in the first place.

A camera and tripod are recommended. Suitable for ages 18 & up. Carpooling to various photography locations required. 

Are you interested in restoring and improving the land surrounding your home? Do you desire a beautiful native environment that attracts birds, bees, and butterflies? Are you looking to conserve or restore your property and create a low maintenance, ecologically stable environment? Then this could be the program for you! Participants in this session will review the essential elements for pollinator garden success, including garden design, soil management, plant selection, plant nutrition, and general plot maintenance. Participants will also tour the Cook-Albert Fuller Nature Center front gardens and receive pollinator plant seeds collected from the property to start a home pollinator garden. Suitable for ages 16 & up

Build your own bat house to hang on your property! We’ll help you assemble your own bat house and give you instructions on hanging and maintenance so you can provide important shelter for native bat species!

*This workshop will be in an indoor space with hammering and power tools.

Please register for the number of Bat Houses you wish to build. If you would like to build two, please register two people. If you have a group coming to help build, please contact us to let us know. 

Enjoy a calming, relaxing, and stress-free coloring experience for grown-ups at The Ridges! During this class, Jane Tomich will share techniques, tips, and pointers to help you become a coloring expert. Learn how to blend, build layers of color, and how to mix colored pencil colors to achieve a beautiful, realistic appearance to your nature photography coloring pages for adults! In addition, Jane will show you how to turn your own nature photography into a coloring page using an app for your phone.

 Workshop supplies will be provided. Suitable for ages 18 & up.

Learn to layer colors using natural dyes! In this four-hour workshop, you will learn the basics of building an indigo vat. Then learn the process of making a dye bath using marigold flowers! You will create shades of green on silk through overdyeing. All experiments will be done on provided silk swatches. Leave with a silk scarf of your own design! Suitable for ages 18 & up.

Join Len Villano and The Ridges as we take a breath to enjoy fall – the time when Door County holds nothing back.

We’ll head out onto the landscape in search of those iconic autumn scenes, but as always, remain open to what might unfold. Some moments will be familiar, others might be easy to miss if you’re not paying attention, and that is where good photographs tend to live. Along the way, we’ll focus on using light, color, and the environment to create images that feel like more than just peak fall, they will feel like your experience of fall.

A camera and tripod are recommended. Suitable for ages 18 & up. Carpooling to various photography locations required.