How did you get interested in agriculture? And what are you hoping to gain from your apprenticeship?
May 2025
If you don’t feel inspiration or curiosity or even the slightest nostalgia when looking out over a well managed pasture with diverse plant and animal life then you should stop reading after this paragraph. Go stare into some rangeland, lined with a rickety old 5 strand fence, filled with four legged black dots, singing meadowlarks, whoomping grouse and the smell of sagebrush. Maybe even look over a hay meadow with some other four legged black dots but this time an electric poly wire lining the nearby riparian zone with a few frolicking beavers enjoying their space given back to them. Go for a drive through the “country” and slow down at that old barn, then stop to admire the rusting john deere on the side of the road. Not feeling it? Maybe when you have your next meal ask yourself how it got to your table and see if that sparks curiosity. If you’re still not feeling inspired or nostalgic or even just a little curious, well, no need to read further because what I want to convey is that I believe agriculture is in most (if not all) humans and that those deep guttural aches in your stomach from staring at what’s left of our working lands is because of that same reason. Agriculture was a part of many of us at some point and those feelings are the residue of a divorce between us and the land that may have happened generations ago or for some it could have been just yesterday.
All this to say what got me interested in agriculture were those same feelings. Growing up in the west I’ve always been attracted to those forgotten fields that lay idle until development arrives only to bury our historic agricultural ways of life (and future potential) underneath the next “greatest” suburb. Consequently, having my heart broken enough this way I decided after 25 years I should probably stop ignoring that gut feeling telling me I need to be a good husband of the land and of those that depend on it. To summarize, here are a few personally inspiring catalysts that changed me from observer to participant;
- Practical Tradition (Think: Progression through regression.)
- Healthy Foods
- Healthy Ecosystems
As I think about what I would like to get out of this apprenticeship I have a checklist of skills to acquire and experiences that I hope to live here with the Mannix Family but in fear of drying your eyes out from reading another list about another kid who wants to know another way to saddle a pony or rotationally graze goats, just know this; What I hope to learn from this apprenticeship is a deeper capacity for understanding how to work WITH the land in a way that provides for me and the greater ecosystem that I am apart of.