Friday, April 10, 2015

Autumn Farmers wanted!!!

We Autumn Farmers would really love to enable and educate anyone at all who is interested in learning the ins and outs of pastured-chicken farming. So we're very excited to announce 2 opportunities right here on our farm, for all you budding chook farmers.
The first is Autumn Farm Chook School, which is a one day intensive held right here on the farm on Sunday the 14th of June. We'll introduce participants to all aspects of our CSA, from day old chicks to slaughtering and marketing. There'll be a tour of our little community abattoir and a delicious farm lunch, as well as theory and practical hands on activities. Spaces are limited, so please email us if you're interested.
Chief farming lady Pearl, in one of her many delightful floral aprons
The second exciting thing is that we are looking for a passionate, engaged, hard-working intern to join us for 3 months of learning, working, and chicken-wrangling. We are also in the process of hand building a strawbale home, so there is also an opportunity for you to participate in and learn about natural and strawbale building, if you’d like.
Tiny offgrid strawbale house
As an Autumn Farm intern, we would anticipate that you would work an average of 4 hours per day, 6 days per week, at tasks including (but definitely not limited to!)
-all aspects of chicken farming, from caring for day old chicks, moving the pasture houses, feeding, watering, transporting,  slaughtering and marketing
- construction: there’s always something being built, whether it’s a composting toilet, a brooder house, a chicken tractor or a strawbale home
- vegetable-growing: we grow food for ourselves, and occasionally sell excess to local cafes and shops
- compost-making: we make hot compost using waste from the abattoir
- bee-keeping: we have a Kenyan top-bar hive
- cooking and preserving
- this year at Autumn Farm we will also be running a pasture cropping trial, planting a food forest, and introducing sheep into our pastured farm enterprise, so it’s likely you’ll get a taste of all of these fun things too.
The view down the valley
We will provide you with a rich learning environment, with opportunities to learn everything you need to know about running a pastured poultry CSA and a small community abattoir. We have a cozy caravan for you to sleep in, and will provide you with healthy and delicious omnivorous meals. Bathing infrastructure at Autumn Farm is fairly rudimentary, so if you’re not going to be happy with an outdoor solar shower and the odd fire-bath, this probably isn’t the right job for you.

We ask that you are
-self-motivated
- aligned ethically with the ideals of sustainable, regenerative agriculture and/or permaculture principles
-prepared to do the work that needs doing
-willing to agree to a one-week trial on our farm

We are willing to consider couples and/or families, though the caravan is equipped only with a double bed. We are also happy to support writers, artists or other creative people who would like a peaceful place to live and work in exchange for helping on the farm.

If you are interested in coming and sharing in our farm, please send us an email – autumnfarmbega@gmail.com - telling us why you’d like to come to Autumn Farm. What are your inspirations and aspirations? You don’t need to have any experience, but you do need to be willing to learn and work hard.

How exciting is that? We're super excited about meeting some new people and sharing in our knowledge, so if you or someone you know is interested, please please PLEASE send us a message!


Photos of our farm by Jay



6 comments:

  1. Would you believe it - I have two weeks annual leave that FINISH on Friday the 12th! Bummer. I would have loved to come and spend the day on your beautiful farm - and we have sooooooo much learning to do! Oh a food forest! Sheep! So much excitement :-)

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    1. Oh what a bummer!!! We're hoping there's enough demand to run these farm days semi-regularly, so hopefully you'll get your chance 😊

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  2. Sounds super, but i couldnt find exactly where your farm is. What area us it in?

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    1. We're in Bega on the far south coast of New South Wales

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  3. Nothing better than farming in Autumn, I grew up on a farm when I was little and the colors are just breathtaking. I miss it today. If you don't mind I saw really touching Autumn quotes that I think you'd fall in love with and i'll share them here for you: Autumn Slogans

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