Company description Sisters Hill Farm is a beautiful and productive 300+ member CSA located in the Hudson Valley of NY.  We are now about to embark on our 21st season with the following mission statement to guide us: As an expression of our reverence for creation, the Mission of Sisters Hill Farm is to grow healthy food, which nurtures bodies, spirits, communities, and the earth.

Our goal for the the 2019 season will be to provide vegetables to 320 families. If you are interested in learning how to make a living growing high quality vegetables on just a few acres, then this is the farm for you. It is amazing how productive a small, well managed farm can be. Since our beginnings with 40 members in 1999, we have harvested and distributed more than 1.25 million pounds of high quality organic vegetables and fruit. We strive to give ten percent to several local charities both in Stanfordville and the Bronx. Internship description

Finding an apprentice for us is a serious matter.  We don’t just want a warm body, we want a perfect fit, for you and us.  With that in mind here are some of the things that distinguish Sisters Hill Farm Apprenticeship from many others.

1. We’re experienced and successful.  Now entering our 21st year!
2. We keep things simple.  CSA is all we do. 250 full weekly share equivalents, 320 or so members.
3. We’re efficient; our marketing, our wash/pack, our weeding, and our harvesting.  We have developed scale appropriate systems that work.
4. We care.  About the community at large; we offer a sliding scale, free need based shares, and donations to food banks.  The Sister of Charity own the farm and Dave has run it for them since year one.
5. We let apprentices do things!  Learn to drive all of the tractors, use all the tools.  This is rare among apprenticeships but we want to show you what everything is like.
6. We plan together, you get to see how we figure out what is most important to do, when, and why.
7. We have check-ins and ways to measure your progress throughout the season.
8. You get to practice being in charge!  For the last 10 weeks of the season apprentices alternate getting to be in charge for a week at a time. 
9. We care about mentoring you so you can succeed in farming both here and beyond.
10. Chance to advance to a second season and the potential to move into a management role.

 

Additional learning opportunities--  Our director and farmer, Dave Hambleton, is a real “Jack of all trades.”  He welcomes apprentices to lend a hand on a volunteer basis with projects at home after work hours.  These things are not part of the apprenticeship, but one of the reasons you may want to come here is the wealth of knowledge and skills Dave possesses.  These skills are sometimes used and shared during work time, for example, last year we built a new high tunnel from scratch. This involved bending, shaping, drilling and welding; among other skills.

He’s a designer, inventor, tool maker, and builder.  Some of his many projects include:

1. His home--designed and drafted it, cleared the woods, framed it, wired it, plumbed it, installed the heating system, sided it, roofed it, milled the trim from rough lumber, installed the trim, painted it-- pretty much everything except the excavation, foundation, and drywall.  
2. The greenhouse and high tunnels on the farm--bent the bows on custom made wooden jigs, custom cut and bent collar ties and wind braces, and cantilevered vents.  One hoop house is mobile and screened to exclude bugs. It’s numerous innovations including integral skis to slide into any of 3 positions, and an anchoring system allows us to secure the house in a new position in less than 5 minutes.
3. Countless custom tools on the farm including mobile greenhouse benches, finger weeders, collinear hoes, rolling bed markers, hydraulic lift wash tables, multidirectional foot operated pressure washer based bunch washer, rotating barrel root washer, magnetic portable knife block.  In terms of metal working we have at our disposal a 220V MIG welder and a 40A plasma cutter, a metal cutting circular saw, an abrasive chop saw, 3 angle grinders, and more.
4. Mentoring successful sustainable farmers like YOU!

Compensation this position is : stipend / non-monetary compensation
Application instructions Deadlineno deadline