When I tell people I’m a farmer, they often think I spend all my time growing food or being outside. But in reality, much of my time is taken up by so many other tasks: organizing employees, marketing and distribution, fixing things on the farm, and building infrastructure so we can produce more healthy, local food for more people in our community.
It’s actually a huge challenge for people who want to be farmers and grow more food.
So I thought: What if someone was helping with the projects and building? They could focus on the projects and get them done faster, while getting to have fun, enjoying the outdoors, and contributing to growing a local farm. And I’d have more time to grow more food or do jobs unique to the farmer.
Here we have an opportunity for a win, win, win.
So if you’re interested in any of the following positions, please contact me (Antonio) at [email protected] and share why you’re interested in the position and why you’d make a great fit for it. Thank you!
Handy-Dandy Farmhand
We’re looking for 1 person who:
- Is a jack or jill of all trades
- Is highly skilled in using tools
- Is a good problem solver
- Puts a great deal of attention to doing something the right way
- Has experience doing renovation and/or construction work
- Enjoys spending time outdoors
- Can work independently and take initiative
Some of the tasks you’ll do include:
- Carpentry
- Using hand tools
- Metal work
- Building sheep troughs and gates in the barn
- Helping to install lights in the barn
- Working on our rainwater catchment system
- Helping to fix or build gates, doors, work tables, etc.
- Building a tool room for our vegetable-growing
We want to make more efficient workstations on the farm, make it easier to move the animals around and take care of them, and grow more veggies.
Start/End Date: Start by end of April or beginning of May. Ongoing.
Schedule: Flexible. However, we’d like someone who can be with us throughout the entire season, as it takes time to orient someone to the farm, teach them how to work around the animals, etc.
Exchange + Stipend: This position works on an exchange/barter system. For your work, we’ll exchange our fresh, farm-grown vegetables, access for you to spend time on the farm with your family. If you want help with your garden, growing more vegetables, or having backyard chickens, we’ll also exchange some training. We will include a stipend to cover your travel costs.
CSA Pick-Up Helper – FILLED
We’re looking for 1 person who:
- Is on the farm on CSA pick-up evenings to help with distributing vegetable boxes to our CSA members
- Can speak with our customers regarding any issues
- Animate the member pick-up experience through conversation
Start/End Date: Second week of May to end of October 2021
Schedule: 1 day/week
Exchange: This position works on an exchange/barter system. For your work, we’ll exchange our fresh, farm-grown vegetables, access for you to spend time on the farm with your family.
Backyard Chicken Grower
We’re looking for 1 person who:
- Is a backyard chicken grower and wants to help others raise their own backyard chickens
- Practices a high standard of care for backyard chickens
- Would help us create a video training on raising backyard chickens
Our farm has a Canadian breed of chicken on the endangered list that we’ve been breeding for years. These chickens are extremely hardy, take care of themselves, and raise their own chicks. They’re the perfect birds for backyard chicken growing, and working with them also means protecting an endangered breed.
We have a hatcher that we could use to hatch more chicks. We’re also looking for someone who could work with us to get more folks interested in backyard chickens to use this breed and teach them how to do backyard chickens well through an online training we would produce.
Start/End Date: Flexible.
Schedule: TBD
Exchange: This position works on an exchange/barter system. For your work, we’ll exchange our fresh, farm-grown vegetables, access for you to spend time on the farm with your family.
Painter
We’re looking for 1 person who can help us paint:
- Our front gate “Cavaleiro Farm” sign
- Farm equipment and work areas
- Potentially murals created in collaboration with others
We’d like to use upcycled paint that would have otherwise gone to a landfill.
Start/End Date: Summer 2021
Schedule: TBD
Exchange: This position works on an exchange/barter system. For your work, we’ll exchange our fresh, farm-grown vegetables, access for you to spend time on the farm with your family.
Cook
We’re looking for 1 person who:
- Enjoys cooking and preparing meals
- Would make 2–3 meals a week using fresh food from our farm that we can freeze and eat on the farm
- Would take photos of the food/meals to use on our social media
- Would provide some recipes for CSA member tips
Start/End Date: May to end of October 2021
Schedule: TBD
Exchange: This position works on an exchange/barter system. For your work, we’ll exchange our fresh, farm-grown vegetables, access for you to spend time on the farm with your family.