Our beloved Dr. Shepherd Bliss could use some help. Please consider keeping this local farm viable.
Following is a list of some of the benefits from working part-time picking boysenberries at Kokopelli Farm in Sebastopol. Please share with others who may be interested and invite them to contact me, including both their phone and email address. We are currently training people to begin picking in early June through mid-Aug. We only pick in the mornings, since that is when the berries taste best, seven days a week, whenever we have orders. Pickers select the days and times they want to pick.
No farming experience is necessary. We can train you. Mature teens are welcome and can be instructed on how to become excellent berry pickers. If this job might interest you, please call soon, as we are currently interviewing people.
Farmer Shepherd, 707-829-8185, taking calls after 7:30 a.m., or 3sb@comcast.net
1. Financial—payment in cash on the day of picking. Payment is $10 per flat. Each flat has 12 small bush-berry baskets, which together equal six pounds. Once trained, most people can pick at least a flat an hour; some experienced pickers can pick two flats an hour.2. Over-ripe or flawed berries can be eaten on the spot or put in larger strawberries baskets and taken home or given to friends.
3. From early June to Aug., we tend to pick each day. Pickers are able to decide which days to pick, depending on how many flats have been ordered, and how long they want to work. We only sell by the flat or half flat, not by the basket.
4. Instruction and training on how to pick the best ripe berries is now available. This includes attention to the following: eye/hand coordination, color differentiation, business concepts, such as good use of time and energy, ways to avoid hurting yourself, others, plants, basic organic practices, etc.
5. Free access to the following fruits growing on the farm: raspberries, blackberries, plums, apples, and sometimes tomatoes.
6. Camp-out spaces in four different locations for pickers and friends.
7. Picking starts at dawn, with a free breakfast, usually oatmeal, provided when someone gets hungry. Then we sit around a table and talk about regenerative, permacultural ag. and related issues.
8. Boysenberry and raspberry bare-root starts to be planted where the pickers want to at their homes or elsewhere.
9. Permission to plant, eat, & sell other food and flowers in two raised beds and in the rows, throughout the year.
10. Farm tours can be organized by pickers for friends.
11. Farmer Shepherd can make recommendations for pickers seeking other jobs.
12. Wholesale prices for those who want to sell boysens to friends or others.
13. We can teach you things, such as how to mow with an old-fashioned scythe.
14. Testimony by former pickers: “I felt that I learned how to think like a berry” and “I became a boysenberry whisperer,” listening attentively to the needs of the berries.
15. Participation in a farm-based educational community. Shepherd is a retired college professor.
16. Working outside in nature with nature, rather than against it.