Tess Freeman / The BulletinSarah Wells, left and Melissa Wood disconnect a section of a wheel irrigation line in the field of Rainshadow Organics. Wood and Wells are two of four interns who are working at Rainshadow Organics as part of the Rogue Farm Corps program.

Betsy Flood was never much of an animal person until this spring.

Working with baby goats has that kind of effect.

“I’m really enjoying the animals,” said Flood, 25, who through the Southern Oregon-based Rogue Farm Corps has been interning at Gigi Meyer’s Windflower Farm in Alfalfa for the last two months. “That’s one thing that surprised me. … The goat babies, the chickens, the horses — I love the horses — they’re all great to be around.”

Flood is one of six Farm Corps interns who have settled into digs on three different farms in Central Oregon: Meyer’s 20-acre spread in Alfalfa, Sarahlee Lawrence’s Rainshadow Organics just west of Terrebonne, and Chris Casad’s Juniper Jungle near the Bend Airport.

Interns, most of whom have little to no agriculture background, will live and work on their respective farms, logging as many as 1,500 hours in the field with mentor farmers over the course of their eight- or nine-month internships.

In addition to field work, the Farm Corps program includes weekly classes, workshops and get-togethers with other area farms. Interns pay a $1,500 tuition fee to get their boots dirty with a sustainable agricultural expert, though they make that money back in the form of monthly stipends between $400 and $600, depending on the farm.

“My parents thought I was crazy,” said Melissa Wood, a 21-year-old intern from Central California, who is one of four interns at Rainshadow Organics, an 80-acre farm and ranch operation that produces fruit, vegetables, herbs, flowers, grains, pork, chicken and eggs. “We’ve only been here for two weeks, but it’s been awesome so far.”

At Rainshadow, interns each have their own tent on a wooden platform and share a communal outdoor kitchen. Cooking crews take turns preparing meals made almost exclusively with ingredients from the farm. A lunch salad last week featured farm-fresh kale, parsnips, carrots, pea shoots and mint leaves.

“I’ve always been interested in the production of food and becoming more self-sustaining,” said Richard Gelb, a 24-year-old intern from the Bay Area who has lived in Bend for several years. “It’s a valuable skill to have. I’d like to be able to teach and help provide for others.”

The Rainshadow interns are each in charge of two greenhouses and their own plot in the farm’s garden. Rainshadow harvests crops year-round, so its interns have helped reap the winter and spring harvest in the High Desert while also preparing the land for summer crops. With the added hands this season, Rainshadow is adding a fruit orchard and is commercially growing watermelons for the first time.

“I’m just impressed anything can be grown out here,” said Evan Schmidt, who is interning at Rainshadow with his girlfriend, Sarah Wells. “We’re spoiled in the Bay Area where it’s always so temperate. … Here, there’s what, 10 frost-free days a year?” (Rainshadow sits at approximately 2,800 feet elevation.) “More than anything,” Schmidt added, “I’m excited to see something grow (from) start to end. That seems inherently gratifying.”

Young, fresh-faced farm labor is nothing new for Rainshadow, Windflower or Juniper Jungle. The Farm Corps program, though, strives to provide a more structured, hands-on agricultural experience for those interested in small-scale farming practices, whether they strive to be future farmers, gardeners or even sustainable food advocates.

“Maybe 10 or 20 percent of the interns from this program will go on to have their own farms,” said Lawrence, the owner and operator of Rainshadow Organics. “But there’s so many ways to be involved in sustainable food.”

Interns are expected to stay on their respective farms until November to help with the fall harvest and, in Juniper Jungle and Windflower’s case, winterize the farm in preparation for next spring.

Started in 2003 by a group of Jackson County farmers concerned about the development of the next generation of agriculture, the Farm Corps has expanded into the Willamette Valley, Portland and now Central Oregon. If all goes well this year, more farms could be added to the program’s Central Oregon chapter in 2016.

“This is a great opportunity for us to figure out if (farming) is what we want to do,” Wells said. “We get a chance to test out what this lifestyle is like and to figure out what kind of scale we’d like to do it on.”

— Reporter: 541-617-7829; 
beastes@bendbulletin.com.