Interns

Ten interns are present at any one time at ECHO.  Six of the interns are responsible for each of the six areas, two interns are new and and assuming responsibility, and the last two are newly established positions focused on appropriate technology and community gardens.  The ages range from just out of college, 22-23 to early thirties.  Some interns are married, some have kids.  Most are single girls and guys.  The current spread is as follows:

Dave - 24

Laura - 24

Brandon - 23

Sherrill - 24

Joe - 26

Karyn - 27

Laura-Catherine - 27

Brian - 28 (married)

Me - 29

Kim - 33

Most of the interns come from the east coast, although we currently have a few from the midwest and one from Canada.  I know, CANADA.  He takes a lot of crap from us.

Most of the interns come to ECHO with agriculture-related degrees like horticulture, animal science, botany, etc.  A few, like Brian and me come with completely useless degrees like finance and economics.  

A set of two new interns arrives at ECHO every three months which means that every 90 days we have to say goodbye to what have become good friends and welcome more people into the family.  This can be a hard thing to do again and again according to the folks that have been around longer than me.  By the time I am a senior intern next January, I will have seen 100% turnover.  That's worse than the Army.  

An interesting thing I thought about two days ago as I looked at some beans starting up trellises was that every intern is experiencing every month for the first time.  While the senior interns may have a good handle on how ECHO works, they have never seen ECHO in April which makes for an interesting learning environment.  Normally the old-timers in an organization have all the answers, but no intern here gets to see a season twice.

New experiences:

1. Learned how to hand-polinate pumpkins (dirty plant sex)
2. As part of the previous new experience, found out that pumpkins, cucumbers, watermelons and other curcurbits have male and female flowers (thus the dirty plant sex).  This explains a lot from last year's watermelon crop in Italy.

3. Saw moonlight so bright that the color cones in my eye were active

4. Saw turmeric (pronounced ter-mer-ic) as it looks before it's part of curry powder

5. Tried a Rio Grande cherry

6. Found out that angel food cake instructions matter