Brandon Burns
A lifelong learner, homesteader, naturalist, and father — following the question at the heart of this school.
How do we live well — with one another, and with the Earth?
That question has guided Brandon Burns for most of his life, and it sits right at the heart of Foothill Frolic Farm & Forest School.
Born and raised in Texas, Brandon's earliest education happened largely outdoors. He grew up fascinated by plants, animals, and the natural world, developing experience with animal husbandry, hunting, fishing, camping, and the practical skills that come from spending a great deal of time outside.
As a teenager, he moved to New England, where that relationship with animals and the land continued. He lived and worked alongside a herd of thirty trail horses, guiding rides, caring for the animals, managing volunteers, and teaching lessons and pony rides.
Over the years, Brandon's curiosity expanded into permaculture, ecology, food systems, and community. As an urban gardener in Providence, Rhode Island, he worked in community gardens and backyard growing spaces and became involved in grassroots efforts to restore native species, create pollinator habitat, develop productive food systems, and practice urban beekeeping.
But Brandon's education has never been confined to one subject — or to indoor classrooms alone.
A lifelong, largely self-directed learner, he has immersed himself in language, philosophy, anthropology, biology, ecology, spirituality, and the study of healthy human communities and relationships. Along the way, he also became part of a vibrant yoga community in Providence, earning his 200-hour teaching certification and spending seven years facilitating Yoga Nidra and sound-healing experiences.
Learning became a family adventure.
Brandon, his partner Jaid, and their three sons traveled throughout Appalachia and as far as Mexico, living and working on community farms through Workaway. Together they explored farming, spirituality, community building, and ethical land-based business models — not simply as ideas, but as ways of life.
For more than five years, Brandon and his family have also homesteaded in Northern Vermont and Tennessee, practicing food preservation, foraging, bushcraft, herbalism, gardening, and other skills that deepen a family's relationship with place.
Today, Brandon is homeschooling his three boys while working in remodeling and construction, co-facilitating gatherings and camps for children, and continuing to learn alongside the people around him.
That may be one of the most important things Brandon brings to Foothill Frolic: he does not see teaching and learning as two separate roles.
He brings the curiosity of a student, the practical hands of a builder and homesteader, the attentiveness of a naturalist, and the lived experience of a father raising and learning alongside three boys.
He does not see teaching and learning as two separate roles.
At Foothill Frolic, Brandon will help young people explore the farm and forest, develop real skills, ask bigger questions, solve problems together, and discover what they are capable of contributing.
And through all of it, he intends to keep doing exactly what he asks of them:
stay curious, keep learning, work with his hands, care for the living world, and make room for plenty of play and joy along the way.