Internships
at Twin Pond Retreat
Twin Pond Retreat, Center for Wellness and Sustainable Living, is a diversified homesteading community and healing center, utilizing holistic approaches to land management, food production, and lifestyle to promote the healing of ourselves, our communities, and our ecosystems.
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Intern Cabin
Internships will be educational and will focus on annual and perennial gardening (food, medicine, and dye plants), animal management, permaculture principles and practices, fiber arts (plant dye gardens, natural plant dyeing, and felting), and event planning/preparation and staffing for Retreat Center.
We are a diversified homestead and we grow nearly all the food which is served here at Twin Pond. We have large vegetable gardens and will be expanding the gardens this Spring. We have fruit trees, nut trees, and edible shrubs throughout the landscape and edible forest garden plantings. We have various plant dye gardens (annual and perennial) and perennial herb and medicine gardens throughout the land as well. We have a greenhouse. We rotationally graze chickens and sometimes sheep in the fields. We raise bees and are experimenting with top bar hives. We offer private wellness retreats, group retreats, a variety of workshops and community events.
Fiber arts is one of our areas of interest, specifically growing and processing plants for natural dye, processing wool from raw fleece to plant dyed felted products. We offer a variety of fiber arts classes. We are in the process of building a bicycle-powered drum carder for carding wool which will be ready by spring! , specifically growing and processing plants for natural dye, processing wool from raw fleece to plant dyed felted products. We offer a variety of fiber arts classes. We are in the process of building a bicycle-powered drum carder for carding wool which will be ready by spring!
Tasks will include animal management, feeding, caring for, and moving animals, planting the gardens (vegetable, medicine and dye plants), maintaining, harvesting, and processing things we grow. We believe in being active in our greater community and people who come here to live and work here are involved in a variety of community organizing activities. We encourage interns to get involved in local community organizing through helping with the annual Village-building Convergence as well as ongoing year round Transition Town work. Let us know where your interest in your community lies!
Areas of learning will include:
An understanding of permaculture principles and practices applied here at Twin Pond.
Growing plants for natural plant dye - cultivation, foraging, harvesting, natural dye process, processing fleece, and felting.
Basic Herbal Medicine knowledge - how to grow plants for medicine, their uses, and how to harvest and process plants for medicine.
Community organizing skills
The daily operation of a retreat center which offers educational workshops and events.
We are looking for 40 hours/week, in exchange for housing in a small cabin. Interns will have access to a three season cabin with a loft and woodstove. Interns facilities include outdoor composting toilets, outdoor shower (compost-powered hot water system), and outdoor kitchen. Basic food staples and cooking facilities will be provided for your use and access to food we grow as well as participation in community meals.
Twin Pond hosts many community events, an Old Time Music Gathering, a Skill Share Convergence, an Apple Cider Community Pressing Party, a Fiber Fest, fiber arts workshops, yoga retreats, and more… We have a beautiful location, nestled among white pines with open fields, forest, extensive gardens, and private lake for swimming. Go to www.twinpondretreat.com for more information.
Twin Pond is a founding member of the Floating Bridge Food and Farms Cooperative, a collective of food and farm businesses in the Brookfield area working together to promote the awareness and the value of local food and a sustainable working agricultural community. To learn more, see our website www.floatingbridgefoodandfarms.com
Please contact us for more information or to receive an Internship Application