about us

Michaela Himelfarb

Founder

Michaela lives in the Mahicantuck Valley on Lenape land commonly referred to as High Falls with her husband, two children and land mates. After 15 years of dreaming about this offering, she started ReStory Kinship Programs as a way to create more villaging around intimacy with the earth and care for the place so many of us call home.

Michaela has a degree in Elementary and Special Education. She also trained for several years at the Wilderness Awareness School and Rites of Passage Journeys in WA state as well as Wolf Tree Programs in MA.

She has worked for several nature connection schools over the last 14 years and is grateful to continue the work that has been passed on to her by many teachers. Michaela focuses on the relational and connective aspects of working with people in and amongst the natural world and she is passionate about creating opportunities for people of all ages to connect to themselves, each other, and the living earth.

Some of Michaela’s many loves are her holy mama circle work, playing her fiddle, basketmaking, hide tanning, gardening, and time with her friends and family.

Ruby Pinyuh-Derovan

Ruby grew up exploring the oak-studded hills and rocky coastlines of Northern California. Waldorf-inspired education nurtured her early love of outdoor living skills, farming, handwork and music, all of which continue to weave into her work as an educator. 

Ruby has spent the past twelve years working with young people. During four of those years she traveled across the country working for Kroka Expeditions as a semester teacher, program coordinator, and leader of class trips and summer programs. She continues guiding wilderness trips, often on wild rivers, for Farthest Field Expeditions. 

 Her other work has included teaching forest preschool, surf instructing for several schools in California, leading backpacking trips, farming, and working as a professional shoe maker and craftswoman. When she is not leading remote trips, she can be found growing flowers, helping her partner build wooden boats, and playing with their bouncy puppy.

Ruby is a graduate of the Bay Area Center for Waldorf teacher training, and has maintained a current Wilderness First Responder for the past 10 years.

Dave Gates

I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago so I know what it is to be deprived of nature but, thanks to my high school biology teacher who also became my friend, I learned how to find nature wherever I am. I studied environmental science at The Evergreen State College in Washington state, worked as a camp counselor in Colorado, worked for the Washington Conservation Corps at Mt Rainier National Park (Americorps). I was a rock climbing guide for 10 years and now I teach climbing guides in India. I was a ranger at the Mohonk Preserve for 4 years. I was trained as a wilderness EMT and am currently a certified Wilderness First Responder. I have also worked as an arborist for 15 years and I am currently starting a recreational tree climbing school and nature connection program.