Or something. Today was the first day that all the interns came to the farm to introduce ourselves to each other. The interns'd be: Amanda, Jarrod, and yours truly. There is still one last intern to arrive sometime in June, but she's responsible for the animal side of the operation. I think this summer is going to be grand. Jarrod is super keen, and I suspect Amanda will be too once she recovers from exams and the associated exhaustion (so she won't be starting at the farm until late April because of all that).
It was a pretty relaxed day of mostly talking through the text in our snazzy new handbooks. The handbooks outline the ground rules for living and working together this season, plus contain this years seeding and planting schedules, and a bunch of readings. And and and we also got to do some work: weeding in the greenhouse, collecting maple sap, sifting compost, and Jeff and I got started on making a compost tea to be used as a fertilizer for the seedlings.
Of course, I forgot to bring my camera again, so no pictures yet.
Overall today I felt pretty even, both excited and nervous to meet everyone, and a bit tired from all the sitting. At times it was a little unnerving to be going through the grit of the contract and rules and such. It felt oddly formal. Made especially so because of the strange shift of seeing friends suddenly as employers, and myself as their employee. In all other farm work I've done there has never been much of a formal aspect to the arrangement -- typically because I was volunteering, and because I had come to the farm through friends.
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2 comments:
...handbooks where everything is outlined in advance, to curtail needless debate or disagreement in the future.
Agreed. It's a good way to make sure everyone is on the same track, and leaving from the same station.
It's also one of those things that, I think, gets comfortably pushed to the back of your mind after the first day. Soon enough, as you say, everyone feels like part of the team anyhow so the formality can simply and easily exist in an alternate universe. Whatever that means...
As for the handbook being a way for the farmers to be more open with the interns about the plans... most certainly. Leslie just made copies of her planting schedule for us, so we've got what she's got. I suspect as interns we're going to be kept fairly closely "in the loop".
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