New Beginnings Take Shape

Greetings friends and family,

Over a month ago I wrote about my resignation from working in Central West Africa. Well, things have progress apace. Almost immediately after returning to Alaska I was on a flight to
Dallas for an on farm work try-out interview for a yearlong apprenticeship position at a diverse, sustainable, grass based farm. The try-out went very well and a few days after getting back to Alaska I heard back with an offer. Tuesday, October the 21st was my start date. Thus far it has been amazing. I was intending on writing more but will keep this post short for tonight.

The sheep have arrived!

Here is the quick low down. I am living and apprenticing at Cobb Creek Farm in Hillsboro Texas. I have to say that I am actually enjoying this part of Texas quite a bit despite the lack of mountains or large hills. The farm manager whom I will be mostly working under is a former Polyface apprentice and farm manager as is his wife. As such, many of the things I will be learning will have that Polyface flare, but Texas edition. (For those of you who haven't heard of Polyface Farm in Swoope Virginia, that farm is one of the best examples of sustainable farming in the nation). The farm is currently raising pastured broilers and cattle; and the sheep arrived just last week. I will also be learning about breeding and hatching of heritage Delaware chickens, building a state inspected processing facility, fence building, and large scale composting, just to cover a few of the highlights. There are many opportunities here for growth and development. This farm is still in its early phases but has some experienced people managing it. I am very excited at this opportunity and hope to absorb as much as possible and to also think creatively to help contribute to the farm.

I am very thankful to God for providing this job this soon after making the hard decision to leave my engineering job. The timing is kind of incredible. I was expecting to be applying to more farms and traveling more this fall for on farm try-outs. I also expected to be somewhere on the east coast or New England area, not Texas. This one opened up first though, started this fall, and has a lot of what I am looking for in am apprenticeship. So stoked!

I will be posting more and am trying to remember to take pictures to put up.The days are long but really good and varied, even with broken water lines, coyote attacks on the sheep, and the occasional dead chicken.

These ladies (heifers) are happy that we fixed the hole in the 1.5" water line.