This is a big transition time on the farm; the apprentices from the previous year are leaving and the next year of apprentices are joining us. I am excited to say that we have some incredibly focused, hard working wonderful folks joining us at Cricket Creek this year. They each have fascinating and unique stories, incredibly diverse skill sets, and a true passion for cheese and agriculture. To top it off, they are all funny, spirited, and a true pleasure to be around. I am thrilled to be working with them all. Back in January, you met Justin, who was the first person in the new crew to join us. I’d like to introduce you all to the four new faces that will round out the group of five apprentices.
Mike is a wayward accounting major. In past lives he was an assistant suits buyer at Bloomingdale’s, a cafe chef, and a co-founder of The Compass Fellowship. A dissatisfaction with office life and a love of milk led him to Cricket Creek, where he’s looking forward to milking cows, selling cheese, and learning how to drive a tractor.
After years of running away from cows and dairy farming, Jenna has decided that while you can take the girl off the farm, you can’t take the farm out of the girl, and has long term goals to return to her family’s organic dairy farm in NY. She believes milk and dairy products are the highest form of food and she would be willing to bet a pineapple jello on whether she could convince you of the same! There’s no pun she won’t make and in addition to making others laugh, Jenna enjoys brushing Tobasi, squirrels and 1950s-style shebangs.
After growing up on Long Island, living a decade in the Hudson Valley, and spending the past
year around the Finger Lakes, Cricket Creek Farm is the first place outside of New York State that Eric has called home. While on the other side of the Taconics, he worked a number of different jobs, clocking in at a blood bank and as a bellhop, working at markets and health food stores, doing buildings and grounds work for a school district, and teaching composition to first-year college students, all of which led Eric to his true vocation, farming. Over the past four years, Eric has worked as an apprentice raising mixed vegetables, pork, beef, chicken, and ducks, and he comes to Cricket Creek looking to learn both how to dairy and how to make cheese. When he is not splitting his time between the farm and creamery, you might hear Eric playing banjo or see him heading out to forage mushrooms.
Cara has come to Cricket Creekfrom Boston where she has been working at the Cheese counter at Whole Foods Market for a number of years. She decided she wanted to come work for Cricket Creek because she wanted to learn to make cheese, rather than just sell it. Her ultimate goal is to start her own goat dairy and cheese operation, and she is excited to include working for Cricket Creek as a part of her journey towards that goal.