About Apprenticing

We are very lucky to have had several wonderful apprentices in the last four years, and we have learned as much from them as they have from us. We feel we have a lot to share: goat husbandry, cheesemaking, organic gardening, orcharding, homebrewing, and more. Of course, we also appreciate the extra help during the busy season, and try to be mindful that not everyone will take to what we do, or be able to accomplish in a day what we can.

Team Creamery 07: Louella, Fiona, Jessie and Mouse

Hours can be long and tiring, especially during full market season. We do six farmers' markets a week, and it is not always possible to predict if we've made enough cheese to cover a market. Some nights we are in the dairy packing cheese for the next day until after 9. Milking happens twice a day, morning and night, at 5:30. Usually the apprentice is responsible for the evening milking, and Saturday morning. Goats respond to routine, and cheesemaking happens on a schedule, so starting work on time is critical. Late starts and interruptions means a late finish to the day.

Some experience with animals is helpful, but not necessary. Be prepared to fall in love with the goats. They can be frustrating, enraging, entertaining, and loving. There is nothing like the unconditional love that an animal can give. They will listen without judgment, and always forgive. We keep about 30 milkers, with an additional couple of retired ladies and of course the bucks.

For the '08 season, we are planning to change our management system a little. We are moving kidding back a month, to late March and early April. If an apprentice would like to experience the entire cycle of birth through breeding, we would welcome someone who wanted to start as early as late March. In previous years, we have planned kidding for late February to coincide with February break from Caitlin's school job, but we can no longer tolerate the cold of a late winter kidding (the goats don't like it either). This later kidding will mean more handling of the kids that are born, as they will need to be separated from their mothers and bottle fed, in order to have more control over the milk supply for cheesemaking.

We do most barn work by hand, which means shoveling a mountain of manure. We deep pack the manure over the winter, letting the pack build up to help provide extra warmth for the goats. The first task of the season is to shovel it all out, and lay down a clean layer of gravel. If we're lucky, we can get it done before the weather gets too hot. There will be fencing to maintain and install. There are always barn repairs to be made, and annual maintenance such as cleaning and painting. We don't make our own hay, and we don't have room to store it, so on a regular basis, we have to go get and stack hay. We always appreciate an extra hand with the garden if that's what the apprentice would also like to participate in. We can also make room for extra garden space just for the apprentice. One day a week is a generally project day, where we all pitch in on barn or farm chores.

Cheese is made every day, and is always in some stage of production. There will be long hours of packing the same cheese day after day, interspersed with the fun of making a new cheese. The apprentice will be expected to learn to run all the equipment and given the responsibilty of the day's cheese. We'll be making goat cheese every day thoughout the season, with April and May being the season of the full flush of milk. Sheep milk starts arriving in early April, ratcheting up the production schedule. Cow milk is available year-round, but we take a break from making cow cheese during the flood of sheep and goat milk in June and July, then get back to it in late summer when the sheep are dried off. We usually freeze some sheep milk to stretch the season.

The apprentice will have at least one full day off a week (usually Sunday), most Saturdays after market or chores, and a weekend a month. In return, we plan to take our family vacation sometime around the first week of August, and will leave the apprentice(s) in charge.

A future project is to build a cheese cave. So far, it's just at the dream stage, but with enough energy, we could actually get one started this season...

All aspects of dairy goat management and care: kidding, disbudding, castrating, hoof trimming, tattooing. Culling pointers (and hopefully NOT carcass disposal), breeding and heat cycles.

Good dairy practices: udder prep, hand and machine milking, milk handling, sanitation, dealing with inspectors.

Cheesemaking: basic chevre, feta, washed curd cheese, bloomy rind cheese, washed rind cheese from goat, sheep and cow milks; yogurt, kefir.

Marketing at farmers' market: setting up our display, customer interaction, rapid mental math while answering the top ten questions asked at market, deliveries, invoicing.

By the end of the season, you'll be able to make our basic cheeses and run our equipment. You'll be able to tell the different goats apart, and have a favorite. You'll be able to hand milk when the power fails. You'll be able to anticipate which cheese we need to concentrate on this week to fill our orders.

In addition to what you can learn from Caitlin about goat husbandry and cheesemaking, Brad loves to teach about homebrewing, and each summer we set aside a brewing day to create an "apprentice beer", that is ready to enjoy by the end of the summer. He can also instruct in the garden and orchard.

In 06 and 07 we shared an apprentice with EllsFarm in Union, the sheep farm that produces the milk we buy to make into our sheep cheese. The apprentice split her time half and half between farms, and lived at EllsFarm. Please email us if you might be interested in a similar opportunity.

The Shed can house one apprentice comfortably (or a couple cozily), and is 10x20, comfortably furnished, with basic cooking equipment and electricity. There is no running water, but the apprentice will have use of the house shower and washing machine. Currently, it is unheated, but future plans call for insulating and installing a wood stove. We ask our apprentice to bring bedding and any specialty cooking equipment we might not have. We have wireless DSL, so bring along your computer. There is also a TV and a sewing machine available! Your friends and family are welcome to visit, as long as they don't mind pitching in with the work.

We'll assign housing according to which apprentice stays the longest. Shorter-season stays might be in more temporary housing or a guest room.

We strongly encourage the apprentice to have a cell phone, not only for personal use, but for emergency roadside needs and communication on the road between markets. Cell coverage is improving all the time, depending on your carrier. US Cellular and Unicel and Verizon are good, T-mobile and AT&T not so good. You can use our phone, but only during non-business hours, and please charge your calls to a phone card. Please do not have friends or relatives call the farm unless it is an emergency. Brad also runs his sailmaking business from the farm, and the phone needs to be free for business.

There is absolutely no smoking allowed on the farm. At this point in time, we can't accommodate dogs (too many of our own, plus free-ranging barn cats and chickens).

We'd like to add a deck onto the shed, and perhaps a porch.

We like to eat supper together several times during the week, the schedule to be determined after the apprentice arrives. This has turned out to be one of the high points of the week, as we entertain each other with travel stories, exchange political and theological points of view. We can certainly accomodate vegetarians, but vegans will have to teach us some specialties. We also welcome a division of cooking duties, should the apprentice like to cook!

We will provide basic groceries, mostly from farmers' market and our farm, and you will have a small food budget for cash purchases. We have no shortage of milk, cheese and eggs. We barter for most of our other needs at farmers' markets, and have access to free-range meat and chicken, an impressive array of artisan breads, every vegetable under the sun, honey, maple syrup, spreads and sauces, and fresh berries and apples in season.

Responsible use of alcohol is OK, and we will often share some homebrew. The apprentice is expected to supply their own beer or wine for everyday consumption.

Generally, the apprentice is on their own for breakfast and most lunches, unless it is a work day and we break for lunch. We will respect your space, and expect the same in return. We all need our private, quiet time.

We have many wonderful neighbors, and our road is a patchwork quilt of many different farming styles. We're on the bus route, so the roads are well-maintained, but still very rural, with wonderful walks nearby. Our closest neighbors Cheryl and Manette at Terra Optima Farm, raise pigs on the whey from our cheesemaking process. Cheryl also milks the cows that provide us with the milk for our cow cheese, so there is the opportunity to learn about pigs and cows as well.

We are only five miles from the town of Union, where there is a post office, grocery store, video store, library, laundramat, restaurants and banks. If the apprentice doesn't have a car, it's an easy bike ride, without any hills. Appleton itself does not have a post office. There is a small library and a general store, but Union is closer to us. Hope General Store is very popular with apprentices, who liked to go there for coffee and the New York Times.

We are fortunate to live in the midcoast area, where there is always something going on. We are only a half an hour from the movie theaters, restaurants, libraries, galleries and museums of Rockland, Belfast and Camden. There seems to be a festival, fair or event every weekend all summer long. We try to be flexible enough if there is something in particular that an apprentice would like to do, that we can shift our schedule or trade chores to be able to do it. The MOFGA apprentice program schedules a series of workshops just for apprentices so there's plenty of opportunity to see other farms, meet new faces, and gain other farm experiences.And we all take the weekend to go to the Common Ground Fair!

"If you don't like the weather, wait a minute." Truer words were never spoken. It can be very cold early in May, and very hot by the end of May. We can get hot, dry summers, or cool, humid summers. Blackflys and mosquitoes are legendary, but usually gone by early July. The fall is the best time of all, with crisp clear dry days, cool at night and shirtsleeve-warm during the day. Bring foul weather gear if you come early in the season.(And all our markets are rain or shine!) A warm hat is nice for cold mornings. You might need mittens or gloves by October! But also bring a swim suit for July...

Bring barn clothes that you don't mind getting trashed -- by goats and by work -- and barn boots. Farm courtesy and biosecurity measures require us to wear clean clothes to other farms, and not to share boots between farms.

"Cheese whites" are nice -- light colored, non-shedding clothes to wear in the dairy, and a waterproof pair of comfortable shoes for dairy use. We have white jackets and hair coverings. We like Birkenstock "Birkies", one pair for the barn, one pair for the cheeseroom. There are less expensive garden clogs available, but they should be comfortable, as we spend many hours on our feet.

For farmers' markets, clean, non-barn clothing.

A flashlight or headlamp -- it gets dark on a country night!

A good pocketknife or leatherman for cutting baling string, among other things.

Bedding and towels.

A bicycle if you can't bring a car. Maine is a rural state, with very little public transportation, so a vehicle is nice, as it will enable the apprentice some freedom to see other parts of Maine and do errands and things on days off. Please do not depend on using a farm vehicle, as we do so many farmers' markets, that it might not be available. There won't be time during a busy cheesemaking schedule to stop and give rides.

Goats:

Temple Grandin is a leading authority on autism and animal management. She has written two excellent books that get you into an animal's head: Animals in Translation and Thinking in Pictures.

John Mionczynski's The Pack Goat. Another glimpse into the goat brain. Very entertaining! (http://www.goatpacking.com/)

American Goat -- photographic journey about a year spent researching goats, and their book The Year of the Goat, by Margaret Hathaway

Life in the Goat Lane by Linda Fink. A humorous collection of stories of life with goats

Hard Times in Paradise: An American Family's Struggle to Carve Out a Homestead in California's Redwood Mountains by David Colfax, Micki Colfax . About a homesteading family who raised goats for a living.

Dairy Goat Journal

Cheese:

The Cheese Primer by Stephen Jenkins

Cheese: A Connoisseur's Guide to the World's Best by Max Mccalman

American Farmstead Cheese: The Complete Guide To Making and Selling Artisan Cheeses by Paul Kindsedt

Sustainable Agriculture:

Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan. If you don't read another book in your life, you must read this one.

Where I got inspiration to do what I do:

The Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Growing up as a pioneer girl in the late 19th century.

Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss

Anything by Helen and Scott Nearing

Walden by Hnery David Thoreau

Apprenticing at Appleton Creamery

Our experience

Work expectations

What you'll learn

Housing

Meals

Neighborhood

Nightlife and Entertainment

Maine weather

Things to bring

Recommended Reading List