Getting Home

I left the farm on November 1 and rode a Greyhound bus to Portland, Oregon to catch the Amtrak train to Chicago. From there I took another Amtrak train to Washington, DC, where I caught my last train, which got me to Jacksonville. The train ride was uneventful as a whole, and all of my trains were either early or on time. Many people have the impression that Amtrak is almost always late, but that has not been my experience after riding on trains for several thousand miles. Perhaps I have just been lucky.

Sleeping on a train is not the most enjoyable experience, especially when you have to share a seat with someone you don't know. For the most part, I had two seats to myself, which is pretty comfortable, as it allows you to curl up on your side and stretch your feet out onto the leg rests. If there is someone sitting next to you, there is sometimes the option of stretching out on the floor of the lounge car, which is just a place for people to sit away from their seats. If you do this in the late hours of the night or early morning, the attendants won't bother you about it (at least that was my experience).

Anyway, I am home now for a little over two weeks, until my dad drives me to Kentucky on November 27. I am planning to stay on that farm until March or April, at which time I will hopefully have another farm to work on for the summer and fall. Of course, if I really like the Kentucky farm, or if no other option turns up for the summer (which seems unlikely), I might just stay there until the fall of next year. I suppose it all depends on how it goes this winter.

Planting Garlic, Six-up, and Leaving

Once again I have been neglectful of my duties as a blogger. I will try to make amends for my month and a half absence from the world of blogging by writing about a number of things that have happened within the last six weeks.

We finished our hay making on the second-to-last day of September, and it was a good thing: the day after we brought in the last alfalfa bales, it became cold and rainy, and the weather hasn't changed much since. After a hot, dry, sunny summer, we have been having a cool, cloudy, wet October. Who knew that the weather could change so much in one day? The high on that last day of bale gathering was 86 degrees, and the high the day after was about 55. It was shocking, to a person from Florida, where October temperatures are often in the eighties.

October has been considerably less busy than the previous five months. The days have also shortened dramatically, as they always do in the fall in Northern places. While we used to start work between five and six, then take a several-hour break in the middle of the day, then work until nine or nine thirty at night, we now start between nine and ten in the morning, take a short break or don't break at all, and go until about five or six. It is almost hard for me to remember what summer was like.

One of our big October projects has been preparing ground for and planting two acres of garlic. We starting plowing in the second week or so of October. We used four horses, two in front and two behind, on a sixteen inch plow, which is relatively wide and thus requires three to four animals in this area's sticky clay loam. The plow worked beautifully, as David has recently figured out how to adjust it to plow evenly and cover surface trash well. It was a real learning curve for me to hold four reins in my hands in order to drive the four horses, but I did manage to do it, and I am sure that it is one of those things that gets easier with practice.

We spent two days spreading manure on the plowed ground, using three teams of horses and three manure spreaders. We used a tractor with a front loader to load the manure spreaders, which is unfortunate in some ways, but made the whole job much faster and easier and resulted in the manure being spread more thickly. We ended up spreading several tons to the acre, which will hopefully result in many large bulbs of garlic next year. We had a problem this year with too many undersized bulbs. Customers will not accept small bulbs as seed garlic (planting stock), which is how the farm markets its garlic.

To incorporate the manure into the soil, we used a large disc harrow, which is so heavy that it goes much better when we use six-up. Contrary to how it may sound, this is not a spin-off of a lemon-lime soda drink; it is a way of arranging six horses to pull an implement. Three horses are driven in front, and three follow behind in back. Getting that many horses caught, harnessed, and hitched is a bit of a production, but it sure gets the work done fast. I got the chance to drive the six-up, and it is actually much easier than driving four-up, because we simply tied off the reins of the back three horses and drove the front three horses. The back three follow along just fine. I suppose this could have been done with the four-up, but plowing requires much greater precision than discing.

Planting garlic requires two steps: popping cloves, and the planting itself. Popping cloves consists of sitting on one's butt for hours at a time, taking apart garlic bulbs, and sorting the small or damaged cloves into baskets separate from the large cloves, which get planted. As you may have guessed, this is not hard work, but it can be uncomfortable to set bent over for several hours at a stretch if you are not that used to sitting for long periods. I actually find popping cloves to be somewhat addictive; it is easy and mindless, and it is also productive. What more could you ask for?

Planting is quite a bit less enjoyable, but we have found ways to minimize the back discomfort of that by doing it cooperatively. We generally have one person drop cloves into the planting furrow, and then one person follow along, crawling (not stooping!) and pushing the cloves into the ground right-side-up. Yesterday, we tried having one person drop cloves into three furrows, and then having three people follow along and push cloves into the ground, and this was just as easy and quite a bit faster. The really bad part about planting garlic is the wet, muddy, cold ground that soaks your knees. Nothing to be done about that, really.

I am leaving in three days, on November 1. I will be sad to go, which is a good sign, I suppose. I told the farmers here that I will not be coming back next year, which I think was the right decision, as I want to learn how other farms work with draft horses. Knowing that I have to move on doesn't make the loss of a place and people that have been important to me for almost half a year very much easier, however. Perhaps I will see at least some of these people again some day, at a draft horse or farm equipment sale somewhere.

Horse Buyers and Winter Plans

Selling horses is one aspect of the diversified farming practiced by David and Deborah. Though the alfalfa leaf is the farm's major money-maker, horses certainly contribute their share to the farm's income, both directly and indirectly. Indirectly, horses "save money to make money," as the saying goes, by using no expensive outside inputs like diesel fuel and tractor tires. David and the interns do all of the farrier (hoof) work (as the horses and not shod and only require the occasional cleaning and trimming), and they rarely require medical care. Horses are also the reason that the farm has such an easy time finding enthusiastic, unpaid labor, which saves quite a bit of money, I imagine. Directly, horses make money by being sold as trained draft teams or single horses.

Horse buyers are an unfortunately fickle and unreliable lot, however. Many people contact the farm saying that they would like to buy a team, but most of those people are not serious enough to go further than one or two emails. Some will come and "window shop," as Lisa puts it. Such buyers may come and drive horses and say that they are wonderful and will surely make a good team, and then leave, never to be heard from again. This is one kind of frustrating horse buyer experience.

The other kind of frustrating horse buyer experience stems from horse buyers with specific and difficult to match needs and wants. We recently had two loggers come to look for a single horse to match with their horse. Unfortunately, their horse was a very tall animal who fit poorly with all but one of our horses. Ben, the horse that did match with their animal had not been driven in a week or two, as we were focusing on training two other horses who were too small to be matched with the logger's horse. Ben was thus out of practice (he is quite a young horse, so he sometimes forgets his manners) and did not stand still very well when asked to stop (whoa). Thus the horse buyers drove away without one of our horses in their trailer, disappointing everyone.

On a more positive note, I thought I would share my plans for the winter, which have worked out quite well. After contacting several farms in June, July, and August, I managed to find a farm with draft horses that wanted to take an intern during the winter months. The farm, located in south-central Kentucky, raises a wide variety of livestock and uses draft horses for hay-making, feeding, and water-carrying. I hope to have many opportunities to drive their two Percheron (a breed of draft horse) mares. I will be leaving my current farm internship on November 1st, going back home via train to visit my family for a couple of weeks, and starting work on the Kentucky farm in late November.

The experience of working in the arid West has made me realize that I have little interest in living here. Though working here has been a good experience, I certainly wouldn't want to live in a place where it doesn't rain for four months in the summer, and where much of my time farming would be spent dealing with irrigation. I feel relieved that I found a farm in Kentucky to work on, and I think that I will confine my future internships to the area of the country east of the Mississippi. 

Long-Delayed Update and Photos

It has been two months since I updated. We have done much hay-making, getting in both first and second cuttings of some fields. Our first cuttings of hay all went for horse feed, which will be used to feed the herd and the work-horses in winter. Winter feeding 39 horses takes a considerable amount of feed, and we have several thousand bales for that purpose. Most small square bales are around 50 to 75 pounds, so 2,000 to 3,000 bales is quite a lot of hay!

The hay-making process starts with mowing, which is done on this farm with horse-drawn mowers manufactured in the 1930s and 1940s. The mowers work surprisingly well despite their age, as long as they are regularly oild and sharpened. They work on a "ground-drive" system, which means that the back-and-forth action of the knife is created by the turning of the wheels. In short, the rotation of the wheels turns a system of gears, which in turn rotates a fly wheel, which rotates a pitman stick, which is attached to the knife, which moves backwards and forwards through the hay crop. This ingenious and simple system translates forward rotational motion into back-and-forth motion of the cutting knife.

After mowing, the hay is left down to dry for one or two days. In the East, a process called "tedding" would be undertaking during this time, which consists of fluffing the hay with a specially designed implement. In the dry arid West, however, tedding is unnecessary. The next process is raking, which is done with a tool called a side-delivery rake. It, like the mower, is ground-driven, with the wheels turning gears, which turns a bar covered in curved bars that move the hay into a long windrow. You simply drive along in a straight (more or less, depending on your skill level) line, and the rake does the work of sweeping it into a windrow. It is a difficult thing to do at times, as it requires some tight turns to make the windrows close enough together to sweep up all of the hay.

Raking alfalfa is time-sensitive, as it cannot be either too wet or too dry. If it is too wet, it will rot. If it is too dry, the leaves (the most valuable part, and the part that the Maders sell to the herb companies) will fall off, or "shatter" in the hay-making jargon.

The final process is baling, which is one of the few things that the Maders do with a tractor. Balers require so much power to compress hay into flakes and tie the flakes into bundles that they virtually require the engine-driven power provided by a tractor. There are motorized hitch carts that horses can pull that will supply the neccessary power with considerably less fuel than a tractor would use, but the Maders do not have one (at least not yet).

After the bales are formed, the tractor can pick them up with another power-driven implement called a bale wagon or stack-liner, or we can go into the field with a horse-drawn wagon and pick them up manually. The latter is preferable because of the fuel savings, but we have done the bale pick-up in both ways.

I hope I have not gone into too much jargon and so on in the preceeding, but hay-making is a complex art that is difficult to explain. Hay should really be green on the inside of the bale when you take it apart, even though most people think of hay as a light brown color. Hay turns this light brown color because it gets rained on, which leaches out nutrients, or because it is exposed to light for too long. Out here in the West, hay is almost always of a consisently high quality compared to Eastern, rained-on hay. (Sorry Eastern hay-makers.)

I have posted a few pictures below that will show some things that have been going on around here.

Above is Ben, probably my favorite horse, being driven on a cultivator by Ryan, another intern. Ryan and his girlfriend Casey left a couple of weeks ago after working at the Mader farm for five and a half months.

Here is the horse-drawn wagon being stacked full of hay. Mirah the dog thinks she is being very helpful (she's not). That is Lisa, another intern, on top of the hay stack.

Here's a boring picture of sprinkler pipe in the farm's flattest and best field (plainly known as the Flat Field). The quarter-mile of pipe shown has to be moved twice daily for about two weeks to make it across the 35 acre field.

Here is a shot of me driving horses Flag (on the left from this view) and 'Miah (on the right). That is Ken, who is trying to start his own farm around here, on the hay stack. He has been helping out a lot since Ryan and Casey left.

Same horses, same driver.

The view from the driver's perspective on the wagon. I took this while driving that same load of hay to be stacked by the combine that cleans the alfalfa leaf.

Finally, Photos

I finally managed to get to a library with high-speed wireless internet, so I have decided to post some photographs of the farm. They were taken several weeks ago, so things look a bit different now, but they will serve to show some of the things I have been talking about.

This first image is of the Pine Valley, looking down from the top of the market garden at about 5:30 in the morning. Some of the fields shown are part of the farm, and some are parts of neighboring farms.

Another image of the valley, this time from a pasture/hayfield hill on the farm. The water flowing downhill into the ditch is part of the flood irrigation scheme used on the farm to provide water to fields in sod and alfalfa. Water in the ditch is blocked up with a tarp, and then flows downhill into subsequent field ditches, which overflow onto the other parts of the field. It might sound like erosion would be rampant with this kind of flowing water, but the water moves very slowly and the grass or alfalfa sod protects the soil.

This is a harness with a collar. The collar goes on first by being unbuckled and then rebuckled onto the horses neck. The rest of the harness is then put over the right shoulder and pushed up onto the horse's body. The big curved metal sticks with the golden balls on top are hames, which are buckled onto the collar. The rest of the straps are then buckled in various places around the horse's body.

These are horses Misty (on the right from this front-on view) and Quinna (on the left from this view) being used to mark rows for planting. My room mate Lisa is driving them (she is a pro on this tool). I know that the horses look the same, but after spending so much time with them, it is not hard to tell them apart.

Silly as it is, I couldn't resist including a picture of Mirah, the trusty farm dog. She is super friendly to most everyone, and she chases the deer away from the garden. In this picture, she is lying under the chicken house, watching over (or, um, licking her lips at) the chickens. She has actually been very good about not touching the chickens, plump and tasty as they probably look to her dog eyes.

These are the laying hens out on pasture. They are not yet laying, but they are supposed to start soon. We move their electric netting around every couple of days to give them new pasture to eat. They are a lot of fun to watch, and they even come when called (by the sound of someone with a food bucket saying, "chiiiick chick chick chick").

Here is a picture of six horses pulling a soil-pulverizing tool called a disc. They are preparing the ground to be planted in the garden. We have since acquired a much smaller disc that can successfully be pulled by a team (which is made up of just two horses). This hitch is called "six-up" because there are two rows of horses. If all the horses were walking side-by-side, it would be called a "six abreast."

I hope that gives some insight into how things look around here. I may add some more photographs eventually, especially of haying, which is happening right now, but which I will discuss in a later post.

Field Work and Training Mares

In the last two weeks, I have had the chance to get more experience driving the experienced team of geldings (castrated male horses, if you don't know), Ben and 'Miah, that I have been driving for most of my time here. As I said in my previous post, we used an implement called the disc to cut up and turn under weeds on a half acre piece of ground on which we wanted to plant sweet corn. It took several turns around the field, and I got to do most of those, some without close supervision. The geldings are a good team, very calm and reliable, but they do have one major fault--they try to put their heads down and eat whenever they get near a patch of tasty alfalfa. Even tying their heads back with baling twine looped through their bits and around their hames (see a previous post if you don't know what hames are) does no good to curb this, as the alfalfa reaches chest high on them. That is quite tall considering that their shoulders are above my head. A newbie like me has a hard time getting them to move on when they have reached a patch of alfalfa to eat, though David can just tap them with the reins and click at them to get them to move. There is some kind of subtle difference between how they perceive me and how they perceive him. David says that my "presence" is not authoritative enough yet. Hmm.

After the discing was finally done, I took the harrow out on the field to smooth it and crush even more large clods (this soil, while fertile, tends to clump up into rock-like pieces if it is not pulverized enough). This only took about an hour, as the harrow is a wide piece of equipment that covers a lot of ground quickly. It consists of two sections of metal frame with spikes sticking out of it that drags on the ground, smoothing and pulverizing as it goes. It is one of the simplest and cheapest tools on a farm, and can actually be made from a section or two of chain-link fence (though ours is slightly more sturdy than that).

When that was done, David used a field cultivator to make straight(ish) lines in the soil that we could plant corn seed into. The field cultivator has a few metal bars sticking off of it which drag into the soil and make clean furrows for planting into. This is not actually its original purpose (it was designed to kill weeds), but it works great for it. After the lines were made (which took all of about twenty minutes total), we dropped corn seed into the furrows and shuffled along with our feet to cover the seed. We joked that we were doing the "corn planting duck shuffle" because we had to waddle along dragging our feet to do this. That's farm humor for you, I guess.

We have recently been training two mares to work together as a team. Rose, one of the mares, is one of the largest horses that they have ever had, standing at about 18 hands tall (which means that she is 72 inches tall at the shoulder, not at the head). This makes finding a closely matching team mate for her difficult, as most of the horses here are probably 16 to 17 hands. Despite her height, it is not as difficult to harness her has you might imagine, once you get used to lifting a piece of metal and nylon harness above your head. The other horse that we are driving with her, Flag, is more the normal size.

Both of the horses were first trained individually in the round pen, which teaches them to respect humans, accept a halter, and have a harness and bit put on them. They were then hitched together and driven together. We have been hitching them to a wagon to move loads of firewood around, and they have been a bit nervous, but they are improving quite a lot. It is interesting to see the progress that horses can make is just a week or two--they are certainly adaptable animals.

Week in Review

Unfortunately, despite uploading pictures to my hosts' computer, I still cannot post them here because their internet connection is so slow. However, I will continue to post verbal updates of how things are going here.

This last week, we finished the alfalfa leaf order that we had started working on two or three weeks ago. It did not have to take such a long span of time, but we split up the work because there was no hurry on the order and it was quite small by their standards. A few days ago, Fedex came to pick up our order and send it to Mountain Rose Herbs, one of the two wholesale companies that the farm sells alfalfa leaf to. We loaded 46 sacks of alfalfa onto pallets in the back of the truck, Deborah filled out a billing sheet to pay for shipping, and that was that. It was much more simple than I had imagined.

One of the more tedious parts of the alfalfa leaf production business (such as it is) is the sifting of the leaf and the stems in a grain cleaner. The grain cleaner looks like a giant mesh cone. It rotates around like a rotisserie chicken while someone slowly pours alfalfa leaf into it to sift fine leaves out the bottom and stems out the back. The leaves are scooped up and put into sacks, and the stems are also scooped up to be used as mulch, chicken food (chickens love alfalfa, to my surprise) and sometimes to be re-combined if there is still a lot of leaf left in them. Luckily, we did not have to re-combine the stems this time; we had just enough leaf for the order, but not much more.

It rained from Thursday evening through Sunday, so work was slow during that time. We worked on a horse-drawn mowing machine for part of that time. Mowing machines are more complex than you might imagine, as the blade that cuts the hay actually moves back-and-forth by a series of complex gears that turns the rotational motion of the wheels into a back-and-forth motion on the blade. The blades had to be sharpened, and will continue to be sharpened as we are cutting hay. Apparently, the ideal time to sharpen a mower blade is after only six hours of use. We only have about ten mower blades (all of which have been sharpened at this point), so there will be plenty of sharpening to come. The blades are clamped in place in a vice, then sharpened with a drill with a sander unit attached. It is amazing what sandpaper can do to metal; you can really get a fine point on the blade quickly with the drill-based sharpening unit.

Yesterday and the day before were both sunny, so we got back out to work. The garden is looking amazingly weed free from hand hoeing and the use of the horse-drawn cultivator to kill weeds between the rows. Where I was working last year, weed control was never very good, so I am glad to see that that does not have to be the case. Planting in rows with paths between each row, rather than in beds of clustered plants, is a much more effective way of controlling weeds, at least when using horse-drawn tools. There are many great old cultivators still available from auctions, estate sales, and similar sources.

I spent a large part of yesterday morning using two horses with a small disc, a tool that crushes weeds and clods in the soil in preparation for planting. We are discing about a half-acre to plant more corn, after planting about 3/4 of an acre in corn last week. The patch that I was discing (with some help and supervision from my room-mate Lisa) was very weedy after being plowed in fall and left sitting until early summer, so it will still need a few more passes with the disc and a pass with the harrow (which makes the field smoother and more level) before we can plant.

Harness, Alfalfa, and Other Topics

To anyone who might be interested in this blog, I apologize for being so intermittent in my recent posting--I have not had much desire or time to write about what I am doing recently, though a lot of interesting things have happened in the last two weeks.

As far as horse work goes, I have improved greatly in my ability to put on and take off a harness and to "catch" horses from their paddock. Most of the harnesses on the farm are of a certain (and very common) style called "western" or "box britchen," named after the shape of a certain part of the harness. There is one other style, the "yankee britchen," which I think is a bit more comfortable for the horses because of how it distributes the load on the horses' back ends. Bits, the metal pieces fitted into the horses mouth to guide its movements, vary considerably as well. All of the bits that we use on the farm are mild, which means that they cannot cause the horse as much discomfort as a harsh bit. It is generally preferable to use the mildest bit possible to get a good reaction from the horse.

The horses on the farm are used for plowing, smoothing the ground after plowing, cultivating weeds, moving hay and other heavy things around on wagons, mowing hay, raking hay, and producing and spreading high-quality manure. In the last week, the horses hauled several loads of manure out to a field that will be used to grow field corn (the kind used for flour). They have also been used to cultivate weeds in the garden (which is really large by garden standards, being well over an acre) and to haul hay. Today, for example, another intern and I brought a wagon to the hay storage shed to haul a load of grass hay for the working horses to eat, and to haul bales of alfalfa for combining. Alfalfa for combining? I will explain.

The farm produces a huge quantity of high quality alfalfa hay that is fed to horses and sold as an herbal supplement for people to eat. This might sound rather ridiculous (if you don't know much about alfalfa, it is not usually eaten by people), but it makes the farm over $30,000 a year in gross income because it is in high demand by herbal wholesalers but somewhat difficult to produce. The farm has a small modified combine machine that separates stems of alfalfa from leaves. Working near the combine to bag alfalfa leaves and pile up the resulting straw is dusty and loud, and is generally hated by all involved. However, it is not a huge part of the work that we do, considering how important the alfalfa crop is to the farm's income.

Quite a Week

It has been a while since I have posted, mostly due to business and a lot to think about besides writing blog posts. However, I feel I owe it to anyone who might look at this blog to write an update about the last several days.

My train ride was long and somewhat cramped, but very interesting, as I got to see two major cities and a lot of different scenery along the way. I traveled across the bulk of the United States, taking a mostly northern route and passing through a number of east coast states along with Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana, Washington, and of course Oregon. My mom was with me for the first few days of the trip, and we wandered around both New York City and Chicago for the few hours that we were held over in those cities. I felt that there was an interesting difference between the two-- New York seemed more fast-paced and crowded, while Chicago was more open and less full of the sounds of taxis honking their horns. This may just have been a skewed perception based on the time of day, though, and both cities were very interesting to see. It was also nice to have a chance to stretch our legs and walk around after our long train rides.

My longest train ride was by myself. I was on the "Empire Builder" train route for its entire length from Chicago to Portland, which took 44 hours to complete. I must say, though, that Amtrak was never late during my trip, so at least no extra time was added to that long sit on the train.

When I got to Portland, I was told by an Amtrak employee that there was a bus leaving for Baker City at an earlier time than the one I had scheduled. I called my farm hosts and asked if an earlier arrival  (in the evening of that day instead of the early morning of the next) would work for them, and they said that it would be much preferable. Thus I made my way over to the grey hound to get on the bus, which left conveniently soon after my train's arrival.

The bus ride was interesting, as the change between the wetter Portland area and the drier Baker City area was easy to see as I traveled farther into Oregon's interior. It was clear to me that the plants changed from trees to bushes and grasses, though I know nothing about what species I saw. 

When I got to Baker City, I was greeted by Deborah, the woman of the couple who own the farm where I am staying. It was a longer drive to Halfway (where their farm is) than I expected; I guess I am not used to the long distances that seem to separate everything in the more arid parts of the West.

I have been on the farm for a week--a very busy and sometimes difficult, but always educational week, I might add. My first day was rather hectic, as the horses in a four-horse hitch that one intern who is starting his own farm was using to plow his fields broke apart and ran. One of the horses evidently got startled and caused the others to follow, causing damage to the plow but sparing people and other horses (there were no injuries, luckily). After that, however, things improved, and I feel that I have settled in somewhat.

I started out driving horses on my second day, though I was only holding the reins along with a more experienced driver to get a feel for it. I have subsequently driven on my own (though always with an experienced person present) several times, and though there have been some frustrating experiences in which the horses knew that I was not really in charge, I think that I have gotten somewhat better at it. I did crash the front part of a wagon into a piece of farm machinery the other day, but it is fixable and no severe damage was done. 

For those that may not know, you must "catch" and halter a horse that is out in a field or pen before you can harness and drive. Catching consists of getting the horse to stop for you so you can put a halter and lead rope on it to lead it into the stable where the harness is. It is surprisingly difficult for a beginner if the horse does not feel like cooperating, as the trick lies in the timing and posture that you use to approach the animal.

Once a horse has been caught, it is necessary to harness. The harness for a heavy draft horse consists of a large leather collar, two metal sticks that attach to the collar (the "hames"), and a jumble of lines and buckles that attach to the hames and cross over the animal's body. You have to lift the hames and the rest of the harness onto the animal after putting the collar on, which is no easy feet on an animal whose back reaches over your head. The rest of the harnessing process consists of buckling various straps and securing various lines in the correct place.

I hope that none of that discussion was too confusing or obscure. It is a difficult thing to explain, and it helps to see it to understand, which is why I am here.

Leaving Today

I just wanted to post to say that I am leaving home with my mom in about an hour to drive to the Jacksonville train station. I packed this morning, trying to take as little as possible to lighten what I would have to carry and to have less "stuff" to worry about. However, I still ended up with a big backpack full of clothes, books, rain gear, etc and a canvas bag of rubber boots, coats, and a laptop computer (which may or may not end up being useful, depending on the availability of wireless internet). I feel a bit loaded down when I am carrying all of that (as you can see in the picture at left), but I am sure it could have been worse; luckily, I am not very picky about clothing and I don't feel the need to bring that much with me.

I will try to post pictures and comments on this blog during my train ride, if I can find wireless internet in train stations or around train stations. I will try to remember to take pictures; I know that this blog has been lacking in visual interest (and I know that most blog readers appreciate photos).

Joining WWOOF USA

I have not posted here in a while, but I will start posting more frequently when I head out to Oregon in less than two weeks and have something interesting to say. I recently joined WWOOF USA, an organization that allows farms and potential apprentices to connect to each other on either short or advanced notice. WWOOF publishes a directory of farms that is only accessible to members (who must pay a $20 fee to join). As I have been concerned about what I will do this winter, I decided to contact a grass-based farm that raises a variety of animals on pasture in Western Oregon (where it does not get cold enough to preclude having farm chores in winter ). I contacted this farm because it was one of the few in Oregon that will take people during the winter, and because I have become interested in grass-based livestock. I am not sure what to think about raising animals in agriculture, but I am open minded enough to seriously consider it and to work on a farm that does raise animals. They mentioned that I will have to visit, however, before I can take a position, so I will have to think about how to do that while I am working in Oregon. Encouragingly, they had heard about the farm where I will be working and had good things to say about the farmers who will be teaching me, so I feel even more confident than ever that I found a good place to get an introduction to draft horses.

A Message from the Farm

On Sunday night, I called the farm where I will be working to make sure that the farmers would be able to pick me up on May 9th, when my train will arrive in Baker City, the largest town near to their farm. I left a message and did not expect a quick reply, so I was surprised to hear that they had called me back yesterday and left a long and somewhat apologetic message explaining that had been busy and had not seen the email message that I sent them a few weeks ago. They assured me that May 9th would be fine. They also told me that I will be able to use their internet, so I can continue to post updates on this blog.

Just to Make it Clear...

...this blog is still going to be updated--there just isn't much to say at the moment. As far as the ongoing count-down is concerned, there are five weeks left until I leave for Oregon. I still have to make sure that the farmers that I will be working with know when I will be in Baker City (where my Amtrak connector bus will be stopping) so that they can plan ahead to pick me up. I am thinking of calling them at around 10:00 pm (or 7 p.m. in Oregon), as they have not responded to my email.

I have not written very much about what I will be doing while I am in Oregon, but of course I have mentioned that I will be working with draft horses. The breed that they raise and train on the farm is called the Belgian, shown below. This is obviously not a picture that I took, but hopefully I will be able to upload pictures that I take of the farm where I am working.

Interesting Conversations

I have recently joined a forum for people interested in draft animal power and its use in sustainable farming (www.draftanimalpower.com). I enjoy reading the conversations on there, and I have even posted myself (mostly to ask questions and ask for potential job opportunities).

Last weekend, my mom, my sister and I went to a draft horse pulling competition put on by the Southern Draft Horse Association. Such an event literally consists of horses pulling heavy objects (in this case, a specially designed hydraulic truck). I was glad to see draft horses in harness, though pulling for show does seem a bit of a waste of their talent and energy, as compared with plowing a field or pulling logs out of a woodlot. Still, I am always excited to attend an event where people might share at least some of my interest in draft animals.

There is some controversy over the practice of making horses pull at competition, however, as I learned when I posted a comment about going to the pull on the draft horse forum. There were even a few vehemently negative comments by one user (who obviously had a grudge against someone involved in the sport) who seemed to suggest that all owners of pulling horses are abusive egoists. Many other users protested against his (I just assumed the user to be male for the sake of convienience, but I do not know if this is the case) comments. Some members of the forum take their horses to pulls occasionally, and view certain, informal pulls as friendly events where draft horse enthusiasts can enjoy each other's company. All users condemned any horse "pullers" (as people in the sport are called) who abused their horses to win, however, as one would expect from the users on such a forum.

I do not know if the pullers at the competition I went to were good teamsters (people who drive draft animals) or not. I wished very much that I had the skill to identify the talented and the untalented, as well as the caring and the uncaring, but I am obviously too inexperienced to judge others on their horse driving skills at this point. All the more reason to be excited that it is only nine weeks until I leave for my internship.

11 Weeks

I looked at the calendar yesterday and found that I will leave in exactly 11 weeks from Monday. In other words, I will leave in slightly less than three months. Stated either way, it is an exciting fact.

I purchased my ticket for my impending cross-country train ride yesterday. It will take me five days to get to Oregon, which is considerably more time that it would have taken had I chosen to fly there. However, I do not like the thought of flying for numerous reasons, and going on the train makes the trip seem more exciting and adventurous. Luckily, the route seems quite reasonable (i.e., there are no overnight waits for connecting trains and no extremely early morning departures), and there is plenty of time in between the three trains that I will have to take to allow for late trains (which are almost guaranteed on Amtrak; one train I am taking is estimated to be on-time only 40 percent of the time). I will not be able to take my bike, however, as one part of my trip only allows for carry-on luggage. That is not to big an issue, though, as I can probably buy a bike if I really need one once I leave home.

I have recently decided to stop dodging the question of where I am going to school and to tell people that I have a job lined up at a horse farm in Oregon. This seems to be a satisfying response to the few people I have told this.

Finally, a Decision

It seems like a lot has happened within the last seven days, when I first got a call from the Oregon farm. I talked to them several times via phone and email, and my conversations with them and their references influenced me to accept a position at their farm. The last thing that I heard from them was, "see you in May," so the search is truly over. Oregon it is.

I am very glad to have chosen this farm for this year. The more I think about my decision, the more comfortable I become with the thought of it. It is an important choice, one which might influence the rest of my life (if I decide that I like the West and want to stay there, for instance). This does not make it frightening, though; it only serves to make me more excited about it. I am almost literally "counting the days" until the semester ends and I can board the train in Jacksonville.

On a related aside, I had the fortune to go to a local horse-drawn plowing and harrowing demonstration at a living history farm this weekend (this links to a short article with a photo: http://www.gainesville.com/article/20090208/ARTICLES/902081005). Though I had seen many pictures and videos of horses plowing and dragging harrows (the implements that come after the plow and serve to break up clods and make an even seedbed), I had never seen it in person. It was a really wonderful sight (at least to me). I was very glad to be able to explain parts of the harnesses and hitches to my family, who came with me to the demonstration. There were at least a dozen horses, two mules, two miniature donkeys and a pair of oxen (who were not old enough to work on the plowing) at the event. Excitingly for me, many of the horses were Belgians, the breed that I will be working with in Oregon (the horses shown in the linked article are Belgians).

Progress and Pondering

Over the last few days, I have finally started making progress towards getting an internship. On Sunday, I was at my volunteer job (at Kanapaha Botanical Gardens in Gainesville) when the Oregon farm called and left a message that they would call back between 7 and 9 pm, Pacific time (which is rather late in the Eastern time zone). I eagerly awaited their call that evening, and I was rewarded by a call at 10:00 pm (on my clock). The farmers (who were both close enough to the phone to talk to me at the same time) told me that I had gotten good reviews from my references, and said that they thought that I would be quite capable of doing well in their internship program. They offered me a position, which was very flattering and exciting, as they said that they had received many queries this year, with more likely to come as the spring approaches.

After we talked a bit about their farm and a few questions that I had about their program, they told me that they were a bit concerned about the issue of liability (as I am technically a "minor" for the next 11 months), but that they hoped very much that it would not hinder my chances of taking on an internship at their farm. They also told me that they would appreciate a decision about whether I want to be one of their interns for the coming season by the end of the week. They ended by saying that they would investigate the liability concern, and get back to me soon.

Yesterday, these farmers called at the same time and talked a bit with my mom about the potential liability of my minor status. They requested that she send a hard copy of a liability waiver with a signature. The husband in the couple then talked to me about safety and the potential for danger in working on their farm. He again stressed that he believes that I am competent, but he also noted how serious he and his wife are about safety. He apologized for giving me this "safety spiel," as I described it to my mom later, but I did not mind. I have heard such things before, and it only reinforces for me how serious this farm is about taking me on as an apprentice.

Today, my mom sent this farm (via email) a rough draft of the kind of liability waiver discussed over the phone last night. I also got the chance to email two former apprentices with some questions about the farm's internship program, but I have not yet received any responses. I feel confident that all of this will be resolved by sometime next week.

A Short Update

On Tuesday, a few hours after I updated the blog, I got a call from the Vermont farm that was looking for more experienced interns. The farm's owner, who I had spoken to previously, told me that the farm would not be able to take me on as an intern this year, but might consider me after I had "had my hands on the lines" (of draft horses). This was nothing unexpected, and I did not feel particularly disappointed. I have some good opportunities available, and I think that his decision was probably best for both parties. In addition, this gives me a potential opportunity for next year, one which might be very appropriate for me after I have some experience.

Still Waiting

Last Monday (the 19th), the Oregon farmers that I mentioned previously sent me an email saying that they had spoken to some of my references. In the same email, they asked for my phone number so that they could call me and talk about their internship program. I happily gave it to them, and I have been anxiously waiting for a call for the last seven days. Unfortunately, they have not yet called, as the title of this post would suggest, and I am still waiting. Perhaps today will be the day. Or perhaps not.

A few days ago, I contacted an intern reference from the friendly Maine farm (which is the only Maine farm seriously in the running at this point) that I mentioned a few posts ago. She said that she loved working with them, and that she thought that there would be many horse opportunities at their farm. I asked her more about the meat chicken aspect of the farm, as that is what worries me most, and I am waiting to her more from her about that.

My list of potential farms has grown shorter as the time nears for me to make a decision. I may have to "write off" the Vermont farm that was looking for interns with more experience, as they have not responded to my emailed reference or to a phone call placed about two weeks ago. The modified list is now as follows, in approximate order of preference:

1. Friendly Maine farm
2. Oregon farm
3. New York farm (that has received my resume but has not contacted me back about it yet)
4. Vermont farm that I visited this summer
5. New Jersey living history farm

People written off:
1. Maine farm that required visit
2. Maine farm that seemed unfriendly
3. Vermont farm looking for experienced people (?)

I believe that that accounts for everyone. The first two on the "potential" list are the ones that I am most seriously considering, and the last two are not very strong choices, for various reasons. I hope that I will have a decision within a few weeks. It is the time of year to finalize things for the upcoming season, and doing so will put my mind at ease after a long search.

I Wish I Could Visit

On Sunday, I had yet another phone conversation with a farm that I had contacted through MOFGA. I had thought that this particular farm might be a great choice, based on its description on the organization's website, but my conversations with two of the farmers there have been somewhat uncomfortable, and I am left feeling that I might not want to end up there after all.

This farm is a family operation, mostly kept up, from what I could understand, by an older farmer and his son's family. The older farmer's son was the person that I talked to yesterday, and he was not the most talkative of farm hosts. He did give me an overview of the internship situation, describing the farm's vegetable operation and markets, and telling me that there would be several other interns and family members working on the farm. I got the impression that this farmer's son (the grandson of the oldest farmer), who is apparently very interested in the use of work horses, might get first place in working with the animals. Thus, I am not sure that I would get very much horse experience at this farm. I also feel that I might be uncomfortable approaching these farmers to ask questions and have conversations about the management aspects of the farm. When I have talked to both this farmer and his father, I have not felt particularly welcome, and I get the impression that they may be a rather stern family. Though I understand this, I do not know if I would want to work on a farm that gives me this impression.

Of course, a phone conversation can only convey so much. Perhaps if I met this farm family, I would feel completely differently about them and their attitude. However, I do not have the luxury of traveling across the country to meet with the farms that I am contacting.

Some farms do not seem to appreciate this fact, however. When I checked my email this morning, I saw that I had received a message from another Maine farm, which had seemed very friendly and welcoming on the phone. They have decided that I am not an acceptable candidate because I cannot visit them. They turned me down quite politely, never explicitly stating that they were rejecting me, but instead wishing me luck in finding employment on another farm for the season. I responded in kind, wishing them luck in their search for another intern.

This Might Sound Familiar...

...but I recently received another unexpected reply to one of the emails that I sent out over a month ago. I have now come to trust that farms will respond, however slowly. The farmers apologized for their "slow paced reply," and I certainly forgive them, given how friendly and informative they seemed, and how quickly they contacted at least one of the references that I gave them. But perhaps I should back up a bit and explain.

I had contacted this farm after seeing their listing on the website of Rural Heritage, one of my favorite places to search for internships. At the time, I was concerned that some of the other farms that I had contacted might not reply--or might not be interested in me for various reasons--and I thought that this farm seemed a pretty sure bet. First of all, they do not require a visit from a prospective intern, which would have made working with them impossible, as they are located in Oregon. Secondly, they do not require previous experience with horses, which are a very important part of their operation. Finally, they have a large acreage and a variety of crops, which can only add to their appeal, in my view.

Being an eastern Oregon farm, they rely on flood irrigation for much of their crops' water requirements. However, I feel confident that they focus on sustainability in their water use, as they are certified organic, and they have adopted other sustainable technologies, such as the use of draft horses for power. Their major crop is alfalfa (or lucerne), which is adapted to a dry climate and an alkaline soil (which is much more common in the West than in the East, where soil acidity is the major pH problem for most farmers). Thus, I do not feel as guilty as I might otherwise feel about working on an irrigation dependant farm. Indeed, I am an irrigation dependant gardener, so I understand how difficult it can be to produce food without water in excess of what natural conditions can supply.

As I mentioned, one of my references told me today that he had already been contacted by this farm. He has not yet been contacted by any other farm that I have given his name to, so I am very impressed that this Oregon farm contacted him so quickly. This lends weight to my original feeling that this couple would be good farmers with which to work and learn.

A Good Choice

I spoke with another farm on the phone on Sunday evening, January 11. This is one of the farms that I had contacted through the MOFGA program, which I have alluded to in previous posts. I had listed this farm with some hesitancy, as they mentioned that the farm raises meat birds, something that I still feel some hesitancy about. However, after talking to one of the young farmers on the phone, this farm has climbed to the top of my list of potential farms for the season.

The farm is in Hancock County, and the surrounding area receives what must amount to hordes of visitors every summer (according to the farmer, several million). It raises and sells draft horses, which also provide a significant source of traction for its vegetable fields, the fruits of which are sold to local restaurants and shareholders in the farm's "community supported agriculture" program. If the farm included only those two elements, it would be quite a good opportunity. However, the farmers also raise laying hens, meat chickens, sheep, angora goats, and a family cow, making an apprenticeship there an even better learning opportunity.

I found the farmer that I talked to on the phone friendly, enthusiastic, and very willing to answer questions and provide information. He described himself and his wife as "easy going," and I certainly got that sense from my conversation with him. He did not seem to mind that I had not had any serious horse exposure, and he told me that the only qualities that he and his wife required in an apprentice were a willingness to learn and work.

Thus, I would now list this particular Maine farm as a top choice amongst the seven farms that I am seriously considering. During my conversation with the farmer, I got the sense that I was being offered a position, if I wished to take it, something that I am obviously considering. I will certainly keep this encouraging farmer conversation in mind when I start making decisions. As it is, I feel obligated to wait to make any final decisions until other farms start to make their own decisions in February or later this month. In fact, I still need to call another Maine farm, something that may be on the agenda for tomorrow.

An Unexpected Email

A pleasant surprise showed up in my inbox yesterday: an email from a farm in Southern Vermont that I had not expected to respond to me. I had emailed the farm in the middle of December, and I was not expecting a response after three weeks of silence. I visited this farm while I was in Vermont for my internship, as their posting (now removed) on the website of Rural Heritage (where I find many of my internships) had said that they required people to visit them before taking an internship. I must have been likable enough, because they told me that I should send them a letter of interest describing "the times that [I am] available, what [I] would like to get from [my] internship and what strengths [I] bring to the farm." Their farm specializes in rotational grazing and organic meat and egg production, something that might seem exclusive of my current veganism. I am not vegan because I do not believe in the production of animals for food, however; I simply want to be involved in the raising of any animal that I am going to eat or eat the products from.

This farm also runs well-known (at least to the draft horse crowd) draft horse workshops, and they seem to be very passionate about their Suffolk Punch horses, members of a rare but very sturdy breed of farm horses. I think that the farm would be a good place for me to learn the basics of the difficult skill of driving and working with horses, and to learn more about sustainable animal production.

Phone Conversations

I had two phone conversations related to my apprenticeship search today. The first was unexpected, and the second was one that I initiated by leaving a phone message a few days ago.

During the late morning, I got a call from a farm in Vermont that I had previously emailed. The farmer had said at the time that he was done making hiring decisions, and that it was probably too late for this year. He said that he would hang onto my email just in case something came up. Something apparently did come up, so the farmer called me to talk to me.

He runs a horse-powered farm that includes a bakery, grain fields, and various livestock, and his farm sounds quite ideal. I was disappointed, however, when he made it clear that he would really prefer someone with horse experience, mostly because he wanted to be sure that the prospective intern would be comfortable with horses, and able to form a good working relationship. I got the sense that it was not as much that he was concerned about the intern's knowledge of harness and hitching, but more that he was worried about his/her inherent aptitude for horse work. He believed that some people are just not cut out for the work, and that a person (i.e., me) really cannot know if they are right for working with the animals without experiencing it. He still said that I should send my resume via email, so I did. I am hoping for the best, because I tried to make it clear that I am very dedicated to working with horses, and that I understand all of the challenges that I will face. I hope that he got that sense of passion from our conversation, but I am not sure. In fact, I am quite doubtful.

In the evening I got a call from one of the farms in Maine with which I had left a message. The woman who talked to me was very friendly and easy to talk to, and she made it clear that I did not have to have horse experience to work on her farm. She, too, mentioned that some people don't enjoy working with horses, but she did not seem to have the same attitude that some people simply cannot do it well. I really appreciated that, and I hope that I made a good impression. However, she did say that the farm was reviewing the applications of many applicants, and she said that she would prefer it if the intern could visit the farm before taking a position (which I obviously cannot reasonably do, as I live over a thousand miles away).

Though I have become a better "phone-talker" over the last few years, talking on the phone always makes me feel a bit nervous, as I have a hard time telling what kind of impression my words are making on the person on the other end. It is especially difficult if I am trying to make a very good impression in hopes of getting a job. I feel drained after all of these phone conversations. I am always left doubting whether I did a good job of making my case effectively. Additionally, the first phone conversation left me feeling very worried about the thought that I might not be a "horse person," and the concept that I might not know until I do it. I certainly hope and feel that I can be a very good horse person, but the Vermont farmer jolted me a bit with his lecture.

I have to keep up my morale. At least I have a good chance of being hired by the living history farm, if that is all that comes my way. And perhaps I made a better impression than I realized.

Get with the Program

There are a number of programs for would-be apprentices. The explanation that follows is not exhaustive, I'm sure, but it outlines what I have found in looking for internships.

Though you can simply contact a farm that interests you by searching for it in a database like ATTRA Internships or Organic Volunteers, you can also send your application to farms through an organic farming agency like Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont (NOFA VT) or Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (MOFGA). With this approach, you will be asked to fill out a standardized form, and you will then choose the farms that you want the agency to send your application to. This cuts down on the time it takes to fill out applications (you don't have to fill out ten different applications from ten different farms) and allows the agency to track your progress in getting an internship and to give you help if you are having problems finding a farm for the season.

There are also more structured, "official" programs such as those run by research centers (some universities have them), living history farms, and organizations. Howell Farm in New Jersey is one such internship. It offers interns the ability to work with trained staff in a supportive environment that is devoted to teaching. Tillers International, an organization devoted to helping low-income farmers use draft animal power, offers another structured program. The downside to such programs is that they may offer a limited view of the planning and management aspects of running a farm business, as it is not their primary goal to make money off of their crops. This is, indeed, a downside for a person who is looking to own a commercial farm.

Finally, Willing Workers on Organic Farms (WWOOF) offers a directory of farms (which you have to pay for) willing to take short-notice, generally short-term, part-time or full-time workers. WWOOFers, as participants are generally known, are often more transient than apprentices, which can be either a positive or negative aspect of the program, depending on your point of view. WWOOF operates in many countries, including the U.S.

I have applied to Howell Farm and to three farms through MOFGA's program. On Friday, I had the chance to speak with Howell Farm's internship coordinator on the telephone. I like some of what I discovered about the farm (that it has trained staff who can pass on knowledge, and that it includes a wide variety of crops and livestock), but I was disappointed to hear that synthetic fertilizers are used on some of the fields, and that interns will probably not come away with comprehensive draft-animal driving skills. I want draft animals to be a big part of my experience this year, so this and the fact that the farm is not really a money-making business where I could learn business management skills makes Howell a second choice compared to some farms. It would still be a good option for this summer if nothing else turns out, however, and I do not mean to disparage it in any way. For many people wishing to get a general introduction to lower-technology farming or historical interpretation, it would be a great option.

I also got a list of contact information for farms from MOFGA on Friday, which I used to contact two of my chosen farms via phone (at the advice of the apprenticeship program's coordinator, who suggested that it might have a "personal touch"). I had to leave a message, and I have not yet gotten return calls from either farm. Hopefully I will soon. In the world of farm internships, patience is certainly a useful thing.

The Search

I have started this blog because I noticed a lack of information about what it is actually like to become an intern or apprentice on an organic farm, something that has become more popular for young people recently. Serving on an organic farm in Vermont last summer, I worked with five other young women who had decided to become low-paid workers on a small, sustainable farm. Reasons for their choice varied, and included curiosity, environmental ethics, a feeling that it might be fun or at least interesting, and--for me, specifically--a desire to learn how to farm. Interestingly enough, I was the only one who was totally dedicated to becoming a farmer in the future; while one woman thought that it might be a possibility, none of the others were really considering dedicating their working life to producing food for others.

For whatever reason, many young and maybe (I don't know) not so young people have decided to spent at least a few weeks working on farms. If anyone reads this blog, I would be happy if they came away recognizing some of the challenges that farm interns face, and what their day to day reality is like. If you want to be an intern, or you already ARE an intern, this blog is for you. If you are just plain curious about what it is like to be an intern, this blog is for you too. And if you happened to stumble into this blog by some very unlikely chance, I hope you will read it and get something out of it.

***

I am currently in the first stage of looking for my second apprenticeship on a farm: the search. When I search for apprenticeships, I have a set of priorities that I use to evaluate farms on a few of my favorite internship listing websites (attrainternships.ncat, ruralheritage.com/apprenticeships, mofga.org). I scroll through the listings and see if the farms meet the requirements, which are, roughly:

-Use of draft horses, which I have a keen interest in for a number of reasons

-Mixture of livestock and crops

-The potential for a season-long position

-A friendly tone (whatever seems friendly at the time, anyway)

The first one is so rare that I usually only have a small number to choose from. I send these farms emails and call them, and then wait and see what happens. I have had a number of frustrating experiences in which a farm will never respond in any way--not with a yes or no, not with "we'll see what happens," not with any kind of information whatsoever. I am then left with the difficult decision about whether to "write them off" and assume that they will never respond, or whether to wait and see if they respond months later (which some do, complicating the issue slightly). I know that farms are busy, even in winter (I have experienced farm business, to be sure), but I wish that I could get at least some sort of response in those situations.

I have contacted about eleven farms, but two have not responded, and three have been "dead ends" (which means that they did not have the opportunities I was looking for), so I now have a working list of six. I am in the "wait and see" position as yet.