Farm Description
Short Creek Farm is in Northwood, NH, about 40 minutes west of Portsmouth. We raise pastured pork, grassfed beef, and vegetables, and we produce our own sausages, pickles, and other value-added products in our commercial kitchen in Dover. Our primary enterprise is pastured pork. We are a farrow-to-finish operation with two boars and 12 sows. We expect to slaughter almost 200 pigs in 2018. We are still growing our herd of Galloway/Aberdeen beef, with 6 calves due this spring and an expected herd size of about 15 head. Our vegetable a garden is an acre, with half of that space devoted to managed cover cropping. In the garden, we focus on growing ingredients for our sausage recipes and lacto-fermented pickle products.

Internship Details
Intern responsibilities will include all aspects of farm and kitchen work - chores (feeding and watering), animal handling and husbandry, fencing, tractor work, vegetable cultivation, sausage production and packaging, wholesale deliveries, and farmers' market duties. You will be working both with us and independently, depending on the task at hand. You will have a regular schedule with two days off each week, and one day each week may be devoted to farmers’ market duty. We expect that you'll work about 40 - 50 hours every week. We ask that interns commit to a three-month stay at the farm, and we are open to discussing longer arrangements.

Skills Desired
We prefer that applicants have an interest in good food, farming, ecology, or some combination of those things. The most important things are an open mind, a good attitude, and a solid work ethic. Experience driving a tractor (or at least a manual transmission) is a plus. You should be able to work in all kinds of weather and conditions and maintain a positive attitude, be flexible while carrying out your daily responsibilities, and be observant and detail-oriented.

Educational Opportunities
Your education at Short Creek will be self-directed. On the farm side, you will have opportunities to learn about vegetable production, pasture management, husbandry of pork and beef, equipment maintenance, and marketing. On the kitchen side, you will have opportunities to learn about sausage making, fermented pickles, and cured meats. While much of your education will be necessarily focused on the "how" of things, we look forward to sharing the "why," to the best of our abilities. This is a great opportunity to learn what it takes to run a local farm business using ecologically-minded production practices and bringing high-quality value-added products to market.

Compensation
Interns typically receive full room and board, plus a stipend commensurate with experience. If you live locally and prefer to commute, we can discuss alternative compensation.

Housing
We have a spare bedroom in our large farmhouse that is available for intern use. The bedroom is adjacent to a full bathroom that is reserved primarily for apprentice use. There is plenty of privacy in addition to large communal living areas.