Early morning light through the doorway of intern housing at Funny Girl Farm. Intern housing is located walking distance up the road from the farm itself.
Nate Lotze is one of the interns at Funny Girl Farm and lives in the creatively named “intern house” located a tenth of a mile up Mt Moriah Road. He’s up at 6:30 am and out the door to the farm 10 minutes later after eating a homemade vegan scone fr
If it’s his turn on the schedule, the first thing Nate does when he gets to the farm is let the chickens out of their mobile coop where they roost overnight. A scarecrow wards off airborne predators while farm dogs Phoebe and Filbert (two huge white
Brian Ferrell is one of the salary employees at Funny Girl Farm. As Field Supervisor he manages the day to day tasks related to keeping the fields productive. Brian grew up in North Carolina on 10 acres where his parents kept a large garden. When as
Although there are specific job titles, everyone pitches in to get things done. Fridays are big harvest days and everyone is on deck to get everything from tomatoes to cut flowers out of the fields and up to the barn for processing.
Teamwork and independence are both key to the overall success of the farm. Vegetable Production Manager, Melissa Rosenberg, says part of what attracts her to working on a farm is a love of nose to the ground, solitary, hard work. “I’m a human being,
“One thing I love about farming is the creativity required to solve problems, basically for free, out of necessity. It’s definitely one of my favorite parts of the job.” - Melissa Rosenberg
Nate worked for an environmental non-profit related to climate change straight out of college but eventually wanted a change of scene. Working on a farm appealed to him because he’d get to work outside all the time doing a variety of tasks.
Funny Girl Farm, in Durham, North Carolina, has interns and salary employees working to grow produce and manage several hundred chickens. Intern Nate Lotze worked for an environmental non-profit related to climate change straight out of college but
Nate enjoys being “directly involved with growing good food and the sustainable moment, and working with good people.” Although he’s enjoyed being a farm intern, he thinks the shift towards longer term, salaried employees would be a good thing for f
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