Job description

Company. 

Big Picture Farm is a goat dairy and farmstead confectionary located on a beautiful hillside in Townshend, Vermont.  Our 37 saanens, alpines and nubian goats live happy and healthy lives rotating through the rich pastures and leafy woodlands that characterize our hillside Vermont farm.  Most of our milk is transformed here at the farm into the goat milk caramels that are then shipped direct to over  400 stores nationwide. The rest of our milk goes into small batches of raw milk cheese that we make in the spring and summer and age in our cellar and distribute regionally in the fall.

 In the past year our caramels have made it onto the shelves of over 400 stores, including Whole Foods, Le Pain Quotidien, Murray's Cheese, Formaggio Kitchen, Central Market, and Bi-Rite Market among others.  In addition, our sea salt and vanilla caramels were awarded the Gold SOFI for Outstanding Confection at the 2012 Fancy Food Show; our Chai caramels won a Good Food Award and our Cocoa Latte Caramels won a silver SOFI for Outstanding New Product. We have won praise from Martha Stewart Living, the NYTimes, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Food & Wine and VPR among others. For more information about our farm and confections please visit us at www.bigpicturefarm.com.

Position Description. Winter Apprentice/Farm Caretaker

We are looking to hire a fall and winter apprentice and caretaker. The position will run from October 15th through early Spring. As an apprentice you will learn all aspects of our farm. As we are a seasonally shifting operation, the nature of the duties will reflect the winter months.  Much of the work will consist of milking goats,  caramel making and cheese affinage, as well as partaking in the everyday shop work of packaging and shipping caramels.We expect you to commit to the full time period of 5 months. Once Christmas roles around we dry off the goats and the farm becomes somewhat sleepy and snowy. The goats still need to be fed and paid attention to twice a day. In addition we heat with a wood boiler that also needs to be kept hot. The winter is our chance to escape the farm, so you will be here for longer stretches at a time tending to the farm yourself in the months of January-March. As an apprentice/caretaker, we are happy to share and teach everything we know about running a dairy, pasturing animals, running a value added business, making cheese, processing caramel, and growing a wholesale business. In exchange, you will be filling in the nuts and bolts and everyday needs for us and working long hours on a variety of tasks from milking to mucking out barns to scrubbing cheese molds to labeling caramel boxes and stuffing caramels in bags—in essence you will cover all the bases.  In order for it to be worth our while to slow down and teach you these things, we expect you to commit to doing them with a positive attitude for the entire period of the apprenticeship.  It would be difficult on our lives and our business if you decided mid-way through that the hard labor of farm work is not for you.  We cannot emphasize this point enough: please do not apply unless you are ready to jump into this with your whole body and heart.  Eagerness and a positive attitude are essential.Housing & meals:

Housing is provided in a spacious and charming two bedroom house, a former colt barn, right here on the farm smack in the middle of it all. You will share the colt barn with the other apprentice but each will have his/her own private bedroom. Internet, phone, hot water, heating, and all utilities are provided.  There is a big kitchen for cooking but we do not provide food or meals. You will be expected to do your own shopping and prepare your own food.

Our location is on the top of a hill in Townshend. It is extremely isolated. It is not realistic to think you could walk or bike to town as the mountain is quite steep. Having your own form of transportation is a requirement.  

Compensation: In addition to housing & utilities you will receive a weekly stipend.

Hours: You will be expected to work 40 hours a week with 2 days off per week.

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