Gimme the Dirt…On a Farm Apprentice
by Rebecca Collins Brooks
Featured in Inside + Out
The view from the kitchen window was beautiful. The last day of July was proving to be one of the best of the summer, but I was nervous. The Catskills off in the distance were sublime, and closer to the house, my chickens were pecking noisily around the yard surrounding their coop. Even my favorite view didn’t help my nerves. I was awaiting the arrival of our farm apprentice, coming to live and work with us for the month of August. It would mean a stranger in this house with two introverts, a pasture filled with cows, and 100 chickens that we knew would be harvested in 3 days. I was as tense as a clock whose spring was wound too tight.
We were screened with a written interview and phone call, then vetted by the intrepid Executive Director of the foundation, Susie Cover, who’d known Anne and who sat at our kitchen table while an early spring ice storm approached, drinking tea and chatting about the plight of small farms across the US. Susie told us there was an avalanche of applications sent by young people across the country with a wide variety of backgrounds and education levels. In just the second year of existence, the program was growing fast. We were excited to be a part of what now felt like a movement by a new generation who wanted to be intimately involved in feeding our country from small farms like ours. Soon, we found ourselves reading an application that sounded perfect, and then there we were in front of our computer screen – well, one of us was, while the other sat off-camera, too shy to be seen – interviewing our potential apprentice. It was clear we were a match on both ends of the internet connection, and we each sent off emails to Susie telling her we were ready to go for the month of August!
Based on what we’d all discussed in her application process, we knew dairy work was what Kristen wanted to dig into deep. Bart believes women have a more natural way with dairy cows than men, and he was excited to show Kristen what to do. With no experience with cows, let alone underneath one, that first morning, Kristen learned how to milk our little group of four Holstein cows. I listened as she crouched next to Bart in her new boots while Bart imparted her first lesson on milking. We milk our cows with a small portable can milker with a noisy mechanical pump, but every cow’s milk needs to be checked by hand prior to attaching the milking claw. After only one try, there was Kristen, drawing milk by hand out of our sweet Brie.
Their patriarch, Jack, still lives there – the 10th generation to be born in the farmhouse -and while I didn’t want to intrude, I definitely wanted Kristen to understand legacy farming and the importance of agriculture in our corner of the world. As we neared the home farm, I noticed a golf cart out by the barn with a distinctive head of white hair on the man in the driver’s seat. It was Jack, and as I pulled alongside him and unrolled my window, he said, “Well, hello there, young lady!” He always greets me that way, and it never ceases to make me smile, given my own graying hair and rapidly approaching senior citizen status. I explained what I was doing there. After some small talk, he beckoned to Kristen to hop in the cart – and sped away with her, giving her a tour of the farm. Then we were inside the family home, listening to stories of farming history and of Saunderskill Farm, with Jack’s cat Meow purring from the center of the kitchen table. We talked about the challenges of farm succession planning and his granddaughter, Jen, who’s now running the hugely popular Saunderskill Farm Market. On the way home, we drove past the old swimming hole where Bart and I both swam as kids…and teens….and adults. Showing Kristen her temporary home gave both Bart and me a new appreciation for the place we love, the people who’ve made it so special, and the farm we call home.
Something else was happening while we shared our farming life with Kristen: my normally shy and people-avoidant husband was talking—a LOT. In the barn, during morning chores, when I am mostly trying to remain upright, Bart and Kristen talked nonstop, moving around the milking barn together with ease and familiarity. We are a household that loves learning and never wants to stop. Kristen is the same. Her questions prompted a flow of information from Barton’s head and into Kristen’s, like the water pouring into the stock tank. Bart said to a friend, “I think about things that will be important for her to know, and I keep reminding myself to tell her before she leaves.” The pragmatic part of us knew the impossibility of Bart’s lifetime of knowledge and know-how magically dumping itself into Kristen’s brain in a mere four weeks, but he sure did try.
While I’m writing this, Kristen is outside with Bart starting chores, and I can hear them chattering and laughing while they open a bale of hay. Her muck boots have seen everything a farm has to offer, and they’re covered in it now, too. They’re no longer new, and that’s something Kristen can take pride in. The last few days of her stay with us are moving too fast. She has become a part of the fabric of this farm, woven into our daily lives as easily as she milks the cows. The cows know her, but so do our dogs, the barn kitties, and the chickens. We have every moment of these last days planned, including a much-anticipated day with another incredible young woman, Lily Orr, who will welcome Kristen and me to Cato Corner Farm in Connecticut to make cheese with her. It is particularly fitting that we will spend the day there because it’s the place where Anne Saxelby got her start in the cheese world, a place where she’s loved and where she’s mourned. Making cheese with Lily brings Kristen’s apprenticeship full circle and infuses her time with us with that sense of something powerful guiding all our steps.
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Rebecca Collins Brooks is a writer and farmstead cheesemaker on Hilltop Farm in Accord, NY. She is the creator and founder of The Meeting of the Milkmaids, a gathering of women working in the cheese and dairy industry. In addition to a small herd of dairy cows, she and her husband Barton raise Wagyu beef, selling meat to customers directly off the farm. Her best friends are two terriers, Winston and Molly; and Sylvie, a truly brilliant barn cat. You can visit the farm by appointment to see where truly good food is grown.
Connect with Rebecca via Instagram @catskillwagyu , or Facebook CatskillWagyu