High 65 Low 40                 Clear sunny day with some crispness

Want to live on a farm for the summer?

It is that time of year. The time when interns are moving on to farms all around the country in hope of learning how to grow food, work with livestock and for some run a business.

Our interns will get to learn some of all of the above and a whole lot more! We are opening our farm to up to three interns at a time. We hope to keep the same folks from June to September so that they can build community and learn the processes more deeply. A minimum of 30 days is required.

Most of you know that we run a Self-Sufficiency Skills School as well as Farm Camp and other classes. Our interns get to experience these things as well as be part of the day-to-day learning opportunities. Interns will work along side of us as well as independently as we grow food, harvest, save seed, put up the harvest, milk our goat, raise (goat and human) kids, make cheese, raise chickens, sell eggs,raise bees, tend our fruit trees, build an outbuilding and enjoy our silly ducks.

Interns will be living permaculture.

We are outside of Snohomish, WA on a 3+ acre family farm. We are not a big operation but rather a small farm working on a closed system, permaculture design and cottage business. We are close to lots of amazing hiking, beautiful lakes and a sweet little town that feels like it’s out of an old movie.

We have a weekly farmers market booth where we sell our all-natural skin, hair and body care products, www.SongCroftNaturals.com. This is a good opportunity for someone interested in learning about running a business. Social networking, marketing, writing a blog, bookkeeping, shipping and managing products are all part of the mix.

You may also have the opportunity to work on the subscription newsletter we publish.

We expect interns to have good work ethics, great communication skills and the ability to live in a somewhat rustic way with a good sense of humor, some knowledge of growing food, carpentry, animal husbandry, business or alternative energy. We are able to enrich your knowledge base but hope you have at least one of the above skills.

It would be nice if interns have some experience living in community/cooperatively.

Interns will have their own tents as well as access to our work studio, most of the time, which has a shower, kitchen and library. We also have Wifi available for you to use your own computer.

There will be lots of good healthy food as well as private spaces on the land to sketch, observe nature or?

The stipend is room, board and education. Interns get two days off a week.

If you are interested in exploring this adventure, please send a resume and cover letter to us via email by June 1st.  marilene@songcroft.com

Thank you!

HIGH 34      LOW 22   Clear sunny day with ice and a bit of snow still on the ground.

It’s two weeks until the new apprenticeship program begins! Marilene posted a special in honor of her birthday. We only take registration until January 15th. After that, you’ll have to wait until 2012! Look at our facebook page for the special offer only good on January 6th!

http://songcroft.com/index.php/the-songcroft-school-of-self-sufficiency/#skills

Breeding time is an exciting time of year. This year seemed to come later than normal be cause the girls were just not showing strong signs of being in standing heat. Although we had a nice cold snap in November, which often gets the ball rolling in regard to breeding season. My girls were just not in the mood. It very well may have come from the stress of having coyotes on our land.

The coyotes never got a chance to make a kill but they visited several times in the late fall and even stood right out our backdoor yipping and making a fuss. Our goats were scared, as they well should be, and remained still as statues.

We got snow just after Christmas and fortunately one of the does went in to heat. I brought her over to a neighboring farm where I bred her to what I do believe is the most beautiful buck I have ever seen. He comes from amazing bloodlines so the union should result in lots of milk and cheese!

It might interest you to know how I get my girls over to neighboring farms. I do not have a truck with a canopy. I have a Subaru wagon. The does jump up in the back, sometimes with the encouragement of a banana peel or other such treat.

I grew up with a family pet goat that used to ride around in the car like a dog. (Really) We lived out on the coast in a small town of about 80 people. Things were real boring at times so my dad would take Amber for a ride just to get folks gossiping and making a fuss. This was one of his more minor spectacles!

In about 5 months from now, right around Memorial Day Weekend, we will have kids born. I will be back to milking and the rhythm of the seasons will take another turn towards abundance.

I can already taste the chevre!

High 61 Low 45  Drizzly but warm. ( Our seedlings are loving this!)

Farm Camp

http://songcroft.com/index.php/farm-camp/

This month has been busy with all of the usually Spring chores of getting the cover crops turned in, garden planted, pullets out to forage, hens in their Spring/Summer home, goat kids birthed and settled in, does milked, cheese made, rabbits bred and the post-construction landscaping started, all the while enjoying the flush of green that has taken over our land.

Although these things have me excited, it’s Farm Camp that has been on my mind. In August we will be opening SongCroft up to those who would like to live and learn about how to run a family farm. This is so exciting that I am finding it hard to concentrate on other projects. We’re going to have a lot of fun!

You’ll experience instruction on dairy goats, chickens, ducks and rabbits as well as growing your produce year-round and preserving the harvest. Mushroom logs, the basics of permaculture, food forests, alternative energy and home arts are all part of the program. It’s great to read books and dream about living a more self-reliant lifestyle but it’s a rare opportunity to be welcomed on to a farm where you are able to learn and try things out for yourself!

Checked out the Farm Camp page. Tell us what you think, what you would most like to learn and if you intend to enroll don’t wait because space is limited.

Baby Chicks and a Good Hen (click here to see a video of the hen and chicks)

I just have to show you our new baby chicks! One of our hens decided to sit on a nest of eggs and today they began to hatch. No matter how many times I see a baby chick newly hatched, I am still always amazed.

Our hen sat on the nest, diligently, for 21 days. She kept the eggs warm, turned them several times a day and rotated them beneath her so none of them got warmer than any of the others. She never got up. She never left them. She is a faithful mother. She’s a good hen.

Her nest is inside a dog crate. It is private and safe. The kids and I placed a water feeder and food within her reach.  It was her very own private hotel complete with room service and a bed of straw.

When I checked on her today, there were  four baby chicks and several eggs that she is still trying to hatch. One baby chick was hatched moments before I saw it. It was still wet and a bit groggy. There were two black chicks that look like they are Australorps and another yellow one that looks like our hen, an Auracana.

You can watch them in the video. I hope you enjoy them as much as we do!

Harpo is 15 minutes old

Shugs Birth (click here the title to see the video)

High 42 Low 38 The sky is shifting between sun breaks and darkness.

It’s cheese making time and the kids and I are ready with the molds! Part of our path towards having a self-sufficient lifestyle is to raise dairy goats. Raising dairy goat be very rewarding. Goats have milk high in cream which makes good cheese and the medicinal benefits are well documented. My son, Simon, can chug a quart down right after it’s left it’s maker.

If you are trying to live a self-reliant lifestyle in the city, you can check your local ordinances to see if it okay to have goats. In Seattle, it is legal to have miniature goats and I have met lots of folks who raise them.

Last Thursday, one of our does, Aggie, had two beautiful kids. We now have a little buck and doe. Baby Goats are so cute it is unbelievable!
Every generation receives names from either a literary great or from the live of one of our favorite musicians. The buck is named Harpo and the doe is named Shug. The names came from one of my favorite books. I’ll let you figure out which one.

I had been up the night before thinking Aggie was going to have her kids but she never progressed. I kept checking and finally fell asleep around three in the morning. The next day I ran the kids (the human ones) to their Spanish Class and various other commitments. When we came back, Aggie still wasn’t close. I cooked dinner and cleaned up before falling asleep around ten.

Simon woke me up around eleven saying he could hear Aggie in the goat shed and it was time. I threw on my clothes and ran outside with the lantern. (Luckily, I had the forethought to wire a light in the kidding stall the day before.) Sure enough, Aggie was in the process of birthing Harpo. I looked up and both Sofie and Simon were peering over the stall wall. They weren’t going to miss seeing the kids born. Brian showed up a few minutes later.

When Harpo dropped to the ground, Aggie just looked back like, “Gee, where did that come from?” I helped clear his throat and calmed her as she got ready to birth the second kid. Within five minutes she birthed Shug and all was well. I stayed with her until both had had some milk and were clean and dry. I also waited until I knew she birthed the placenta.

Brian brought the iodine for the umbilical chords and Sofie brought a nice warm bucket of raspberry leaf tea with a bit of molasses and Aggie sucked the entire thing down at once.

I left the mama and babies to bond. It was almost three in the morning and we were  all tired.

It’s been four days and the kids are strong and healthy. Aggie has recovered and if the kids weren’t there, it would be hard to tell she just birthed.

All is calm here. Cheese making has begun. We are working to be a self-sufficient farm.