Study permaculture online through Cornell University’s distance learning program.
Create a design portfolio based on your own project and complete all three of the courses from home to earn a Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC). Continue reading
Study permaculture online through Cornell University’s distance learning program.
Create a design portfolio based on your own project and complete all three of the courses from home to earn a Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC). Continue reading
with Michael Burns of Cayuta Sun Farm
and Steve Gabriel of Wellspring Forest Farm.
This apprenticeship is ideal for Permaculture Design Certificate graduates and others interested in forest farming, small farm design, mushroom cultivation, pastured animal and perennial agriculture.
Cayuta Sun Farm is seeking individuals for a part-time program (20 hours per week) of farm projects and design from May through September. Apprentices receive hands-on instruction at Cayuta Sun Farm through permaculture design assessment tasks and attend local forest farming workshops WellSpring Forest Farm & School. Apprentices are provided with all their food and camp at Cayuta Sun Farm.
Located between Ithaca and Watkins Glen, NY, Cayuta Sun Farm is a small woodland farm and permaculture education site. Log-grown shiitake mushrooms, grass-pastured poultry and forest-pastured pork are grown for market. The farm occasionally hosts visitors, tours, and permaculture-related educational events, including those organized by the Finger Lakes Permaculture Institute.
Apprentice Priorities
Apprentice work is focused on livestock management and chores that includes a daily schedule of running the food, water, health and safety chores, plus the maintenance and development of these livestock systems. If you are comfortable, observant and sensitive around animals, you will live and learn around the schedule, patterns and processes of raising pigs and chickens on pasture and under the canopy of trees. No experience is required but it is helpful if you have prior livestock care experience.
Additional time is spent with the ongoing permaculture assessment of Cayuta Sun Farm. Practice mapping and analyzing landscapes using permaculture principles. Observe and record the farm’s systems by creating ecological assessments of the landscape, including animal and human elements. No experience is required but it is helpful if you have any of the knowledge or skills: earned a Permaculture Design Certificate; an understanding of permaculture design methods; landscape design; the Scale of Permanence; mapping/cartography; or forestry, farming or gardening skills.
Additional Opportunities
You may be able to offer your own specific talent and skills if time and budgets permit. Feel free to offer your best in the application and interview. In the past apprentices have also worked our shiitake mushroom yard and in direct and online marketing.
No experience is required, just a willingness to learn and work collaboratively with the farmers and your fellow apprentices.
Workshops
Apprentices are enrolled in the summer courses at Wellspring Forest Farm:
Expectations
No previous experience is necessary, although graduates of reputable permaculture courses will find this an ideal opportunity to practice permaculture design skills and to build their design portfolio. Only an interest in sustainable, regenerative design is necessary to benefit.
You are expected to devote 20 hours per week to the apprenticeship. Past apprentices have immersed themselves into full-time farm life, gaining valuable skills and insights. Others have maintained part-time jobs off the farm. Many—as they network among the local scene and gain practical experience—find opportunities for paid work later in the summer and fall. We seek persons who can begin in May and continuing through mid-September. Please apply for a shorter volunteer visit through WWOOF-USA.
Our weekly farm meetings will set priorities alongside chore and project schedules. The meetings are also an opportunity to ensure that food, infrastructure, education and other apprenticeship needs are being met.
No special tools or materials are required, except a maybe a pair of rubber and/or steel toe boots. We provide chore gloves.
Other expectations and obligations include:
Farm owners Michael Burns and Kelly Dietz offer:
An ideal candidate will have great communication skills, maturity, integrity, initiative, flexibility and decent physical strength. You should expect to be outside in all weather conditions including rain, cold and summer heat of 90-100 degrees.
Previous experience is valued but not required. A valid driver’s license helps. A car is not required but is recommended, as it will allow you greater access to the beautiful environment and vibrant cultural life found in the Finger Lakes and in nearby Ithaca and Watkins Glen.
College Credit
We can work with administrators and professors to document and supervise your work to earn credit from your institution. Students have earned credit while studying with us through Ithaca College, Cornell University, Paul Smith College, and Empire State College. Co-owners Michael Burns and Kelly Dietz are both professional educators with decades of experience teaching in high schools, universities and in community education.
Committment
This apprenticeship assumes your arrival in May and a committment into September. Shorter stays are possible. Please apply for a shorter volunteer visit through WWOOF-USA. Otherwise, please provide the information requested below and email it to <Michael@CayutaSunFarm.com>. We will consider applicants until we have found qualified candidates.
Visitors to Cayuta Sun Farm during the 5th Annual Finger Lakes Permaculture Permaculture Weekend are offered a morning “Introduction to Permaculture“ presentation, a pork sausage BBQ Lunch and tours of the farm.
If the weather and mycelium cooperate, shiitake mushrooms will be fruiting on the logs in our mushroom yard. Tour participants will be able to purchase by the pound mushrooms they harvest on their own.
In addition, a collection of local farms and vendors will be open for business from 10 am to 4 pm in a mini-farmers market. The line-up includes:
Ithaca-based filmmaker Irene Case produced this short documentary about the local food scene. The Ithaca Farmers Market manager, patrons plus the owners of Kingbird Farm and Cayuta Sun Farm describe their experiences on farm and at market.
In just ten minutes of sometimes quirky and funny footage, the film explores the personal, social and economic themes of small farms and their customers at the Ithaca Farmers Market.
Cayuta Sun Farm is honored to be part of this film and truly appreciates the professionalism, quality and accuracy that Ms. Case and her crew demonstrated throughout their work.
with Michael Burns of Cayuta Sun Farm and Steve Gabriel of Wellspring Forest Farm.
This apprenticeship is ideal for Permaculture Design Certificate graduates and others interested in forest farming, small farm design, mushroom cultivation, pastured animal and perennial agriculture.
Cayuta Sun Farm is seeking individuals for a part-time program (20 hours per week) of farm projects, design, and study from May through September. Apprentices receive instruction through a permaculture design practicum and attend local forest farming workshops. Apprentices are provided with all their food and live at the farm.
Located between Ithaca and Watkins Glen, NY, Cayuta Sun Farm is a small woodland farm and permaculture education site. Currently, log-grown shiitake mushrooms, grass-pastured poultry and forest-pastured pork are grown for market. The farm occasionally hosts visitors, tours, and permaculture-related educational events, including those organized by the Finger Lakes Permaculture Institute.
Apprentice Projects
Each apprentice may work in any one of the following roles: 1) shiitake mushroom production 2) farm marketing 3) livestock management. 4) daily animal chores and 5) ongoing permaculture assessment of Cayuta Sun Farm .
Shiitake: Learn the entire process of producing high quality, log-grown mushrooms, including how to inoculate logs, manage forced-fruiting, grade mushroom quality, harvest and package for market, and to schedule the production of over 1000 logs across a growing season.
Marketing: If you can write well, take great photographs, and communicate effectively in public you may be asked to learn about developing and delivering content for small farm promotions and to represent our farm and its brand at farmers markets.
Livestock: If you are comfortable, observant and sensitive around animals, you may want to learn about the patterns and process of raising animals on pasture and under the canopy of trees to produce superior poultry and pork. Everybody participates on the daily chores to maintain their food, water, health and safety.
Permaculture Assessment: Practice mapping and analyzing landscapes using permaculture principles. Instructional sessions look at the farm’s systems by creating ecoloical assessments of the landscape, animal and human elements.
No experience is required, just a willingness to learn and work collaboratively with the farmers and your fellow apprentices.
Workshops
Apprentives who wish to take the Growing a Woodland Farm & Homestead and Fungi Foraging and Cultivation courses at Wellspring Forest Farm will have their tuition reimbursed upon completion of each workshop. Your enrollment in the courses also entitles you view webinar recordings and learning materials of the Wellspring Forest Farm online course “Foundations of Forest Stewardship” beginning April 2nd, 2018.
No special tools or materials are required. No previous experience is necessary, although graduates of reputable permaculture courses will find an ideal opportunity to practice permaculture design skills and to build their design portfolio. Only an interest in sustainable, regenerative design is necessary to benefit from the practicum.
Expectations
You are expected to devote 20 hours per week to the apprenticeship, that includes mastering your specialty, design and assessment practice, and helping out with daily chores. Past apprentices have immersed themselves into full-time farm life, gaining valuable skills and insights. Others have maintained part-time jobs off the farm. Many—as they network among the local scene and gain practical experience—find opportunities for paid work later in the summer and fall. We seek persons who can begin in May and continuing through mid-September.
Our weekly farm meetings will set priorities alongside chore and project schedules. The meetings are also an opportunity to ensure that food, infrastructure, education and other apprenticeship needs are being met.
Other expectations and obligations include:
Farm owners Michael Burns and Kelly Dietz offer:
An ideal candidate will have great communication skills, maturity, integrity, initiative, flexibility and decent physical strength. You should expect to be outside in all weather conditions including rain, cold and summer heat of 90-100 degrees.
Previous farming experience is valued but not required. A valid driver’s license helps. A car is not required but is recommended, as it will allow you greater access to the beautiful environment and vibrant cultural life found in the Finger Lakes and in nearby Ithaca and Watkins Glen.
College Credit
We can work with administrators and professors to document and supervise your work to earn credit from your institution. Students have earned credit while studying with us through Ithaca College, Cornell University, Paul Smith College, and Empire State College. Co-owners Michael Burns and Kelly Dietz are both professional educators with decades of experience teaching in high schools, universities and in community education.
Committment
This apprenticeship assumes your arrival in May and a committment into September. Shorter stays are possible. Please apply for a shorter volunteer visit through WWOOF-USA. Otherwise, please provide the information requested below and email it to <Michael@CayutaSunFarm.com>. We will consider applicants until we have found qualified candidates.
A gathering in the woods for those who love gourmet mushrooms and agroforestry…
Enjoy a summer tradition at our forest farm: we inoculate logs with shiitake spawn while barbecuing victuals, swaying to beats, and enjoying good company. Bring your own brew, snacks and friends to share.
RSVPs help us plan better. Send yours to Michael@CayutaSunFarm.com.
Michael Burns & Kelly Dietz created Cayuta Sun Farm to produce healthy food in an ecologicaly regenerative system. Permaculture is the central organizing framework of the farm. Learn permaculture with Michael and earn a Permaculture Design Certificate.
January 2020
Cultivate your ecological literacy by looking at complex symbiotic relationships in both natural and constructed systems. Explore and apply systems thinking to your own garden, farm, or backyard.
Learn permaculture while designing your own site.
This course is one of three in a series offered by Cornell University’s College of Life Sciences Extension and Outreach Program leading to a Permaculture Design Certificate issued by the Finger Lakes Permaculture Institute. (Read more about Permaculture Design: Fundamentals of Ecological Design and Permaculture Design: Design Practicum.)
This course is designed by Steve Gabriel of “Farming the Woods” and Wellspring Forest Farm with Michael Burns of Cayuta Sun Farm. Both are cofounders of the Finger Lakes Permaculture Institute. Michael Burns will be the course instructor.
Steve Gabriel and Michael Burns
Cayuta Sun Farm is proud to be a sponsor of the Permaculture Tour Weekend’s activities and we’re looking forward to hosting visitors. Our site has promoted permaculture for over a decade through community education events, including the Finger Lakes Permaculture Institute’s courses.
Spend the weekend on a small forest farm.
We would like to support this celebration of our permaculture community by opening up our woods to campers visiting from out of town. A limited number of rustic camping sites will be available Friday, Saturday and Sunday night. A simple low-pressure water supply, hot shower, and composting toilets will be available. You will need to supply your own tent. Coffee and tea will be available in the morning.
The nightly fee will be $20 per person or $50 per carload of visitors. Finger Lakes Permaculture Institute alumni and those willing to volunteer at least four hours during weekend’s events may stay for free. All campers are encouraged to register using the form at the bottom of this post as soon as possible to ensure a campsite.
Enjoy a homegrown lunch.
Cayuta Sun Farm is proud of our pastured poultry and pork and would like you to taste why. Upon arriving for the Saturday tour, make an order for our pork sausage sandwich. Enjoy your freshly grilled Italian style sausage at a picnic table in the cool shade of our shiitake mushroom yard. We begin grilling at 11 a.m. Cold non-alcoholic drinks will also be sold.
Meet the farmer.
A guided tour will be conducted in a continuous loop from 9 a.m. to noon and from 1 to 3:30 p.m. Join in at anytime. Led by Michael Burns, the presentation will highlight the development of a permaculture-inspired farmstead that has in recent years become a small woodland farm. Highlights include the octagonal classroom built of black locust logs with a reciprocal rafter roof, shiitake mushroom production, chickens and pigs raised on grass and under the canopy of trees, plus off-grid energy systems.
A decade’s worth of permaculture students, teachers, and practitioners have passed through Cayuta Sun Farm working, learning, and connecting with others. We feel lucky to be part of it all, are proud of our local permaculture scene, and look forward to sharing the promise of permaculture and ecological design with all our guests this August 26th through the 28th.
Register to camp:
During nine afternoons and evenings this summer, teacher and farmer Michael Burns instructs farm apprentices and others in the basics of permaculture design. Presentations, activities and design work focus on specific goals and challenges of this 14-year old, off-grid farmstead as it transitions to a working forest farm.
Michael Burns has been teaching permaculture for over a decade and is a cofounder of the Finger Lakes Permaculture Institute. He teaches permaculture at the high school and college level and with community-based organizations.
Hands-on: 2 – 4:30 p.m.
Students are welcome to come early to give labor in exchange for tuition. Our activities will demonstrate the implementation of permaculture design on the farm’s landscape. Hands-on students are not required to pay the evening class fee.
Potluck Dinner: 5 – 6 p.m.
All are welcome to bring food to share. A grill is available. Enjoy pork sausage from our farm!
Instruction: 6:30 – 8:30 p.m.
Learn a basic introduction to permaculture ethics, principles, design process and strategies. Mapping and activities will engage students in practical design for Cayuta Sun Farm, learning skills applicable to a wide variety of projects. Class fee: $20
CLASS TOPICS:
June 13: What is permaculture?
June 27: The Design Process & Scale of Permanence
July 18: Reading the Landscape: Mapping
July 25: Reading the Landscape: Vegetation
August 1: Water & Landform
August 15: Reading the Landscape: Access & Circulation
August 22: Reading the Landscape: Zones & Sectors
September 5: Creative Design
September 19: Regenerative Design
Registration
Send an RSVP by filling out the form below with your name, phone, email address and which dates you plan to attend. You are welcomed and encouraged to sign on and share our Facebook Event for these classes. However, use this form to ensure your registration.