To apply for a position as an intern, please fill out our application which can be found here: www.gavilantrading.com/wwoof

2011 Internships at the Gavilan Trading Post
Located in beautiful secluded northern New Mexico on an 989 acre ranch. We are relatively new farmers and we invite you to learn with us as we build our self sufficient ranch and community. We currently have a small garden, horses, Cashmere goats, dairy goats, Jersey cows, ducks, chickens, turkeys, dogs, cats and beautiful surroundings. We have been producing food exclusively for ourselves and friends, preserving our harvest to (hopefully) last us until the next harvest, and we have aspirations towards growing produce for market in the coming seasons. We're currently working with a ½ acre garden and two petite greenhouses to grow various vegetables, herbs and crops in a 90 day growing season. We grow organic (not certified) and much of the garden designs are Permaculture inspired. We're still very much in the experimental stages of finding what grows well here and the best ways to grow those things.
We produce milk/cheese/butter for our own use, March through November. We expect to be hand milking twelve goats and one cow for the 2011 season.
We harvest Cashmere from our Cashmere fiber goats in January, the fiber is sold raw as well as used here at the ranch for handwoven products.
Our small flock of hens will be expanding to include fifty Australorp laying hens for market egg production, this will be our first year raising eggs for market.
Our meat (Mostly goat) is butchered right here on the farm for our personal use and we're exploring meat resale options for the coming season.
Additionally we have a lot of random projects utilizing low-cost/no-cost building methods. We will be setting up solar systems and developing better water usage practices. We are restoring an on site historical adobe trading post, that we are planning to re-open as a summer store to help supplement some of our money needs.
We expect anyone coming, to genuinely want to help build our ranch into something wonderful and beautiful, and we want you to be learning, growing, & having fun during your stay. We really appreciate self motivated, enthusiastic, and observant people.

Length of Stay
March to November. Minimum: Two weeks. Longer commitment preferred. Maximum: Open.
Minimum three weeks for Cashmere goat combing season Mid to Late January.

Work
Expect to work 35-50 hours a week. Work schedule is fairly flexible.
Work will be varied depending on what is going on, most work is repetitive and can be boring. Being able to work independently as well as in a group is helpful. Work includes but is not limited to, General garden work; digging, weeding, watering, soil prep, compost building, tilling, hoeing, mulching, shoveling stuff. Animal care; Mucking out barns, watering, feeding, moving hay, moving fences, building fences, socializing baby goats, herding goats, milking goats/cows. Household duties; cleaning, washing dishes, cooking, preserving foods. Firewood cutting, gathering, splitting, stacking. Sage removal. General construction and maintenance jobs. Brain storming and problem solving. Harvesting Pinon nuts (Fall). Combing Cashmere goats (January). You are encourage to take time off to go explore and have fun. We suggest that you bring work gloves, barn boots/shoes and work cloths for warm and cold weather. We do have a lot of loaner work clothes as well but an entire pair of work gloves can be hard to come by around here.

Education and training
We are new and growing farmers ourselves but do feel we have something to offer as far as micro scale farming, goat husbandry, and self sufficient style living and we do love to teach and help in any way we can. We do lack knowledge on growing for resale but we are gearing towards such ventures, so that would be a learn with us opportunity or if you have mad veggie marketing skills, you could teach us.
We also have quite a few relevant books at your disposal as well as access to internet. We try to pay attention to any farm tours, workshops and other goings on and would encourage you to attend if you so desired.

Exchange arrangement
We offer room & board in exchange for work. There is no stipend available at this time.
We have shared modular housing, buses, and various other shelter depending on availability and season. Communal building for eating, socializing, and gathering. Access to indoor plumbing and hot water in main building. Currently our residents are made up of family, friends and interns with anywhere from four to ten people living here at any given time. Most meals are up to you to prepare using whatever you can find in the kitchen. We do eat a meal (or more) together everyday, taking turns cooking. Our diet depends greatly on the season, in the summer lots of fresh produce from the garden and in the winter its a lot of starches and meats. We make all meals from scratch and we bake all of our own breads. Everything available from the pantry is very basic staples/ingredients (Flour, rice, beans, cheese, milk, eggs, etc). If you have to have a special food we don't have then you'll need to provide it for yourself. Fresh fruit is not always in the budget. Vegetarians should do fine, and we can cater somewhat to your needs. Vegans would have a very hard time out here. Cooking, cleaning and washing dishes is expected from all residents. We love to take recreational trips to the mountains and cities when we can.

Additionally
Transportation probably available. Both children and Pets are on a case to case basis. We don't like baby-sitting for negligent parents or pet owners. You can't bring a dog. We speak English, but are happy to host non-English speaking people as a cultural exchange.

Information on January Goat Combing
(Please apply no earlier than November 1st 2011)
What we look for is a few tenacious folks to help comb goats from start to finish. We start the 10th of January and we plan to be done within three weeks. We can only take people that can stay for the entire duration of the combing season, because there is a bit of training involved and it takes a little while to get good at it.

The combing work involves catching and wrestling wild goats, which is where some tenacity and muscle can come in handy and then combing off their cashmere which takes a lot of time and skill. We will provide the training but we really need people that are capable of being careful with the fiber and the goats. The combing is mostly pretty fun, as we usually have a small, young, fun group of combers. This makes for plenty of bullshitting, singing and general silliness while combing goats.

Other work involves feeding and watering all of the farm animals, moving hay, as well as moving firewood for heating and some general household upkeep. Expect to work about 40-50 hours a week. It's very cold here (Seriously), so be prepared for days with deep snow and freezing temps.  We also try to make sure everyone gets out and does something fun together, funds are tight but if we can round up gas money we can check out hot springs or go to town or anything else that sounds fun.