Interns, apprentices, and volunteers

If you've been around for awhile, you may remember my post about The challenge with apprentices last year. Thankfully, I've learned a few things in the past year, and we've had some new experiences. As Joel Salatin says in his latest book, Field of Farmers: Interning, Mentoring, Partnering, Germinating,

This is my best advice right now. I'm sure I'll learn something more tomorrow, but this is what I think today.

We've had three excellent apprentices this year, so I am ready to officially start looking for interns and apprentices for next year. I had completely stopped advertising last year, but didn't actually delete the apprentice page from our website, and three very motivated young ladies found the application and applied. And the rest (as they say) is history. We've had a really excellent time getting to know them, and it's been fun watching them learn and grow. If you want to know more about our apprentice program, click on the link to visit our website.

On the other hand, we've had two less-than-stellar experiences with people volunteering on an intermittent basis. I've come to the conclusion (which was reinforced by reading Joel's book) that people really do need to be on the farm day after day to learn farming skills. The hardest thing about people who volunteer for a day occasionally is that it is challenging to give them meaningful things to do. Usually the first time you do something with a new person, it takes far longer than it would if you were doing it alone because you are doing lots of explaining. And they don't know how to do it after doing it only once, which means you have to continue to help them with each new chore multiple times. This doesn't seem like such a big deal when someone is staying on the farm and will be there for several months.

The things that don't take a lot of extra time are things that are not fun -- like mucking out the barn or turning the compost pile. We've had a few conversations with our current apprentice about how we could utilize volunteers in a meaningful way, but we haven't come up with a great idea. I get quite a few requests from people who live within 100 miles and would like an internship experience but can't commit to staying on the farm due to their own life commitments, so I wish I could figure out how to provide an educational experience for them. I'm afraid that the best thing for them would be a program where they pay for a one-week crash course in farming, but that isn't something I'm ready to develop. But as Joel says, "I'm sure I'll learn something more tomorrow, but this is what I think today."

If you're interested in being a mentor or an intern -- on any farm -- I highly recommend Joel's book, Fields of Farmers. I'm not quite done with it, but when I finish, I'll be posting a review on my Thrifty Homesteader blog.

The challenge with apprentices

Our apprentice last summer with Viola, one of the goats he milked twice daily

Quite a few people have asked why we don't have an apprentice or intern this summer. The simple reason is that I have not been trying to get one. And here is the long answer --

When we had an ad on WWOOF, we received a lot of inquires from people who were completely new to homesteading and agriculture. Being completely new to it ourselves ten years ago, we didn't really see that as a big problem. And if people were as motivated as we were ten years ago, it would not have been a problem. Unfortunately it can be a challenge to judge someone's motivation. I had learned from reading internship descriptions from other farms that it was a good idea to have potential interns visit for a day to get an idea of what real farm life is like. And that is an excellent idea. It weeded out a couple of people. Unfortunately, it doesn't weed out everyone who may not be a good fit.

There were numerous people who did a great job during their trial day. We got along great, and they seemed to be genuinely interested in this lifestyle and work. Unfortunately, as it turned out, they were just passing time while trying to get a real job. After accepting apprenticeships with us, several wound up calling at the last minute to tell us that they had accepted a job offer and would not be coming out. There was one who just never showed up and didn't answer my emails or phone calls. It was especially frustrating because in most of those cases, there were others who had also applied, and we told them that the position for that time period was filled. It felt like they had only viewed the apprenticeship opportunity as a fun way to get a "free" vacation while job hunting.

I thought about requiring $100 deposit for apprentices that were accepted. The deposit would be returned at the end of their internship. If they didn't show up or left early, they would lose it. The idea was that it would weed out people who were just looking for a fun way to pass a few weeks while unemployed.

I thought about making it a paid position, hoping people would be more motivated to show up, but then I thought about how much time we put into teaching. Almost everyone who applies has absolutely zero experience, which means we spend a lot of hours covering very basic information, and simple chores wind up taking us twice as long, sometimes longer to accomplish, than if we were doing it ourselves. There is no way I could justify paying someone for making my life more complicated.

Because people do learn a ton while working out here, and we provide room and board, I had contemplated starting to actually charge for the internship. In fact, I do know of one farm that charges about $5,000 for an apprenticeship that lasts a few months. But then I started to think that if someone was paying us for the experience, there would probably be some kind of liability issues, and I didn't relish the idea of trying to explain this to our insurance company. They would probably have no idea how to deal with it. Is it tourism? Is it educational? Or is it something else?

It actually takes a lot of time to correspond with people and then go through the trial day. When someone first contacts me, I send them a list of questions about their background, what they already know, and what they hope to learn, as well as things that they don't really want to do on a farm. After the emails back and forth, they come out here for a day, which winds up being less than productive for us because we are explaining everything we do, which takes more time. We also spend a couple hours talking over lunch. And then I check references. If you've ever hired someone, you know it is a rather time consuming process, and even though these are unpaid positions, the process is the same. As much as I love the idea of teaching new people how to do everything that we do, I need to figure out a better screening process for applicants because this is far too time consuming, and the return on investment of time is terrible.

So, I'm not actively looking for interns or apprentices. I don't have ads anywhere now. It is mentioned on our website, and I have received a couple of inquiries in the last few months. Someone is supposed to come out in January for kidding season. She wants to learn about kidding first hand so that she can have her own goats at some point. She graduates from college in December and will be looking for a full-time farm internship that will start in the spring for next year's growing season. It sounds like she is serious and that kidding season will fit into her schedule well.

This post is long overdue, as I've had several people asking me what I thought of the idea of having an intern or apprentice. I've been telling them for at least a few months that I'd be posting about my impressions soon. The bottom line is, if you really need "help" on a farm, it is more helpful to hire someone who actually has a background in what you're doing -- or at least has worked outside doing physical labor in the past and has shown some sort of commitment to the idea of growing or producing food. Our most successful intern was Michael, an ag student who had done an internship at another farm the previous summer.

I may start actively looking for apprentices or interns in the future, but for now, I am happy to pay an experienced person to help out. For the summer, we have a local college student coming over three times a week to help with weeding, watering, and daily goat chores. She grew up on a farm with goats and a garden and needed a summer job. She is comfortable around livestock and knows her way around a garden, which means she is actually helpful.

Changes

This morning, I am taking our summer intern to the airport. Michael has been here for the past nine weeks, and it's hard to believe how fast the summer has flown! It seems like yesterday when he arrived. He has been helping out with a variety of things around the farm, but his favorite activity has been milking the la mancha dairy goats. He arrived already knowing how to milk because he spent last summer on a farm milking sheep. His daily chores included taking care of the goats -- filling hay feeders and water buckets, mucking out stalls, and whatever else the goats needed. He also washed the sheep and llama fleeces and helped out in the garden from time to time.

When Margaret decided she wanted backyard chickens, he helped her build a movable chicken coop that I blogged about in Homegrown & Handmade, and he helped Mike build our newest turkey tractor, which I still need to blog about.

Talking to Michael gives me hope for the future as he is an agricultural student who is interested in organics! While he was here, I introduced him to the documentaries Fresh and Food Inc, as well as Michael Pollan books, The Stockman Grass Farmer, and Joel Salatin's farming philosophy. It has been a great nine weeks, and we are all sad to say good bye!

This is an especially challenging post to write because I'm trying to avoid turning it into my annual "freak out" post -- you know the one where I panic about how it's crunch time because we have so much left to do, and there is so little time left to do it before winter. You'll probably be reading that post in a week or two though. On Monday, the other Michael (my husband) goes back to work, and the following Monday, classes start for Jonathan and Katherine at the junior college.

New year, new goals

I meant to start writing today's post a few weeks ago, as my 2010 plans started popping into my head, but that never happened, so you're getting it off the cuff this afternoon. And you're getting it from the brain of a woman who just spent two days with some wicked form of stomach bug or food poisoning, which cut short our Chicago vacation. When I was throwing up (and other unmentionables) in that hotel room, all I could think of was how much I wanted fresh air and simple foods. As much as I love our little homestead, I never knew I could be so happy to see it as I was when we arrived home yesterday. I could write a whole post about all the little things that made me happy, but I digress. This is about the future, not my last two days in agony. So, I might forget a couple of things, but here's what's coming in 2010.

Since Margaret has been home from college, she's been working on a complete redesign of the Antiquity Oaks website, so if you've never been there, go give it a hug, because it's going to be gone in a few days. It will be replaced with an entirely new website that includes information on our cows, llamas, classes, and internships, and a few other things that I've probably forgotten about at the moment. But don't worry -- I have all that in my notes. And I need to spend the next couple days finishing up all the copy for that site. The blog will become a page on the new site, but we're going to keep the same URL, so you won't need to change your bookmarks and you won't lose us. The appearance of the blog will, however, change, and you will be able to visit any page on the website directly from the blog.

This also means that I'm finalizing plans for our internship and apprenticeship programs. I finally decided that we're not going to be another Joel Salatin in size and scope. I have no desire to grow 100 steers or 10,000 chickens a year. I do, however, have a desire to meet like-minded people and help them to get a step closer to their dream of self-sufficiency, a locavore economy, greener agriculture and energy, and all that great stuff, so our focus is continuing to shift from production to education, although production will certainly be a part of the education.

Speaking of production, it gets really depressing when I read about people living on little city lots who can grow thousands of pounds of food a year for themselves, and it finally occurred to me that we should be keeping track, so we're going to do that in 2010. We're going to keep track of all the eggs, milk, meat, fruit, herbs, and vegetables that we produce, raise, or forage on our little 32 acres for the next year, starting today, which wasn't very impressive, because it is January 1, in the middle of Illinois. We're at just over four pounds of goat milk for 2010 so far!

And speaking of depressing, the garden gets me the most depressed. I have never claimed to be a great gardener. In fact, I generally complain (in real life, if not on the blog) about what terrible gardeners we are here. But to be honest, we haven't really worked as hard at gardening as we've worked at everything else. Even though I get upset when lettuce doesn't come up or the tomatoes get blight, it's nothing compared to how upset I am when an animal dies. The animals always come first, and that's how it should be, but I also admit that I could have put more time into educating myself about gardening. So, in November, Mike and I attended a full-day organic gardening seminar, and next week, I'll be spending three days at the Illinois Specialty Crop Conference, learning even more about vegetables, fruit and herb production. When it comes to furthering my education this year, the subject is gardening.

And speaking of education, I've decided to stop teaching college. I've been hanging in there teaching speech, thinking I should keep my resume fresh so that if a journalism teaching position ever opens up within an hour of me, I'd have a better shot. But considering the number of unemployed journalists in the Chicago area, I'm thinking there will be a few dozen people applying if they require a master's degree or hundreds if they only require a bachelor's, so it's not worth it for me to keep teaching a class that most students loathe. If the majority of people fear public speaking more than death, how do you think that a required public speaking class stacks up? Although it has certainly given me some great stories. Probably my favorite "excuse" of all time for three students missing a speech was that they were arrested on their way to class. They didn't know why they were arrested and had no paperwork documenting it, and the best part was that they couldn't even get it straight who was driving the car!

So, those are my plans for 2010. What you planning to accomplish?

Communication internship available

Thanks to blogpal Jon for suggesting an intern. I had thought about it, but pushed the idea aside until he mentioned it. I also want to explore the possibility of gardening and animal husbandry internships, but it's going to take more time to write up those descriptions. If you know any college students looking for a summer internship in communication, please pass this along.

For the student interested in environmental journalism or public relations, this is an internship off the beaten path. We have an old-fashioned, 32-acre homestead in central Illinois where we grow our own food organically. We also sell goat milk soap, wool, llama roving, yarn, and animals for breeding, milk, or meat. We maintain three websites that are in need of updating, because the farm is shifting its focus from sales to education. To learn more about our communication needs (and us), visit:

http://www.antiquityoaks.com (needs complete redesign, new copy, new photos)
http://bathandbody.antiquityoaks.com (needs complete redesign, new copy, new photos, possibly re-integrate into antiquityoaks.com)
http://www.nigeriandwarfdairygoats.com (needs new copy and photos, some design work)

The perfect intern will:

• Have completed at least two classes in media writing, PR, or journalism
• Have a working knowledge of HTML, CSS, Adobe Illustrator, and PhotoShop
• Be interested in organic living and sustainability
• Be capable of working independently

What will you be doing?
If you don’t have a broad knowledge of sustainability, you might start by reading a couple of books and viewing some documentaries that we have available. By the end of the internship, you will have a good understanding of locavores, the green movement, sustainability, and organic foods. As stated above, you will be redesigning two websites, taking photographs, and writing copy, which you can add to your portfolio. You may also be helping with our online presence via search engine optimization, our blog, http://antiquityoaks.blogspot.com, Twitter posts, and our store on LocalHarvest.org.

Most of the internship can be completed via a Cybercommute, although the intern will need to spend several days on the farm initially to take notes and photographs. The internship is unpaid; however, there is a travel stipend available. A private bedroom and three homemade meals a day are provided while on the farm.

To apply, send an email to Deborah at antiquityoaks dot com with answers to the following questions:

Name:
Permanent address:
Phone:
Email:
College/university:
Courses taken in media writing, PR, or journalism:
Writing sample: Imagine you have been accepted for this internship. Write a press release for your local newspaper about why you applied for the position, what you are looking forward to learning, and anything else you think is important.