While all Tamarack Farmers (TFers) are involved with the everyday chores of running our farm, cooking our meals, and building our construction projects and trails; there are several opportunities available for TFers to build mastery in one particular area. Each summer I’ve watched as young people step up, take interest and ownership in a project (it’s a beautiful thing). Last summer, I crafted a couple of apprenticeships with interested families before the summer began.
The apprenticeships are available for TFers to gain competency in an area and to use those newly acquired skills to give to the community. At TF, we create a safe place for our farmers to problem solve and to live out “work is love made visible”.
Each summer, we attract amazing staff with a wide variety of skills and the apprenticeships could vary, but here is a list of options we have available every summer based on the structure of our programming and strength of our year-round staff:
If Tamarack Farmers dig farming (pun intended), they can spend time learning the necessary skills to take on one of the following roles:
- Shepherd //Fiber Apprenticeship
- learns about animal husbandry and care necessary for all our fiber animals (sheep, alpaca, and angora bunnies)
- learns and/or teaches fiber arts (from carding to dying, spinning, weaving or knitting)
- prepares sheep and alpaca fleeces for mill (skirting)
- helps move sheep and alpaca flock around camp and set up fencing
- creates a project either for to sell for campership or for folks in need in the broader community (i.e. get other TFers excited about/ and teach necessary skills to knit hats for a local homeless shelter—or make felted slippers to sell at market for campership).
- Dairy Apprenticeship
- learns the in-and-outs of running a dairy—from milking and pasteurizing to bovine health
- runs the dairy homesteading initiatives—making cheese, butter, ice cream, yogurt to sell at the market and/or for the TF community to enjoy at our meals
- Flower Apprenticeship
- makes bouquets for Tuesday and Friday market
- helps maintain flower beds (deadheading, new plantings)
- coordinates flower/herb homesteading projects – making drying areas
- coordinates harvest and drying of herbs/flowers, etc.
- makes bouquets for beautifying the TF dining hall
- Harvest Day Manager(s):
- leads the harvest 2x per week
- works with our garden manager to figure out what’s ready to be harvested
- manages the packing and washing station: taking detailed records and invoices for the kitchens
- helps deliver the produce to the F&W kitchens.
- BDC Market Manager(s): (Tuesdays and Fridays)
- packs up produce and other items for the BDC market 2x per week
- maintains inventory of non-veggie farm products (we can sell anything from homemade beeswax candles to handmade wooden cutting boards—all $ goes to campership)
- sets up and sells to parents along with BDC helpers (gets to take on a mentoring role, so better like being around the little folks).
- Weeding Crew Manager
- keeps a log of areas weeded and date when weeded on the farm
- decides weeding projects for the week (with TF farmer/Garden Manager)
- organizes teens for the daily weeding chore and leads teaching peers the day’s task (i.e. which are carrots and which are weeds)
- learns how to use weed whacker
- Hoophouse/Greenhouse Manager
- maintains all indoor plantings (weeding/planting/seeding)
- learns how to operate irrigation system and water properly
- scythes indoor plant spaces
- keeps glasshouse min/max temperature and plant health log
- learns seeding of various vegetable and flowers.
There are opportunities for other apprenticeships beyond the farm as well.
- Kitchen Apprenticeship
- works closely with our cooks to prepare 2-3 breakfasts and/or dinners per week while gaining necessary skills towards a bigger project
- creates a kitchen project that could include: creating and overseeing a meal for all of TF (from ordering to prepping and delivering), helping with a meal at one of the other camps, or teaching cooking skills to IB or TL campers
- Various Arts and/ or Craft Apprenticeships
- We have the capability of working with campers to create various arts apprenticeships from pottery, to drawing, to songwriting, woodworking, and screen printing (or other things depending on staff skills and campers’ interest).
- While our art barn is open daily for all of our community, someone committed to an apprenticeship would focus on improving their skills in one area and create a project (either to sell for campership, or to add beauty to our community space).
- Building Apprenticeship
- Work directly with our work projects head to learn about and help with all the stages of our building project for that summer: from design, to framing and flooring, to finishing and roofing.
- Takes the lead on a section of the project (maybe oversees the building of bunks—or makes the finishing on the railings creatively beautiful).
- Activism Apprenticeship
- Works on an advisory team which helps shape the topic for community discussions over the course of the summer: from environmental sustainability, to sexuality, to race and gender.
- Creates an activism project: how do we move from empathy to action? (maybe this is leaving TFers with ideas of how to take these discussions home, or creating some kind of art activism piece).
If there are other projects or apprenticeships you’re interested, please contact me as interest in these programs will shape hiring and planning for summer 2016.