Recently some of our customers have inquired about intern or volunteer positions on our farm for their kids this summer. Each time I’ve politely declined as we figured we were done with interns, at least for this year. We have both Miguel and Vicente here, and me occasionally when I do some actual work. That should be plenty of labor for all the things we have to do.
Then the summer rush of produce hit us like a tidal wave. We have averaged about 20 pallets of food a day for the last couple of weeks and there is no sign it’s going to slow down.
Each pallet weighs on average 1500 pounds so that’s 30,000 pounds of produce each day. Most of it we handle by the pallet and use tractors to move it and feed it, but a large amount still has to be hand sorted. We are also having to deal with all the boxes that everything comes in and simply baling the cardboard takes too much time with this kind of volume. We are baling about 2500 pounds of cardboard per week currently.
I say all this to say, for those parents who were looking for a position for their kids on a farm part-time, we have some opportunities. The work isn’t especially hard or difficult as all these weights I listed are handled one bundle of grapes/strawberries/peaches at a time, If it’s heavy we use tractors. But for someone who is watching their kid sit on the couch and play Xbox, it’s a perfect job. I promise they will come home safe, tired, and ready for bed.
We should need this person for basically the summer and can work around most schedules. I’d prefer that when they come, they plan on staying most of the day rather than coming for a couple of hours here and there as that is too much to manage from our end.
I cannot recall exactly who asked me about interning, so I’m making this blanket announcement to everyone in hopes that whoever it was will contact me at dan@ninjacowfarm.com