Applications being accepted for year long stewardship training
If your interested in 2025 let us know.

Our program provides the opportunity to understand what it takes to orchestrate a whole ranch organism and provide food for and participate in a community. We work hard and play hard!

Stewardship time frame: one year commitments

Sustainable Settings offers two-three positions per year. Stewardship training is built around the whole systems approaches that guides the dynamic integration of sustainable strategies on the Ranch.  Tuition for the Stewardship training is $3,333.00 per month x 12 months = $39,996.00 per year (or $109 per day) Participants become an integral part of our working ranch. Participating in growing, irrigating, milking, and daily rhythms of the ranch and are given the opportunity to grapple with the urgent conceptual shifts necessary if we, humanity, are to healthy vibrant and abundant possible future.

Limited housing is provided, though we do have a good network of supporters that may be able to offer housing at a subsidized rate. At peak season, students should plan on spending 9-10 hours a day, 5 days a week on the ranch. Weeks that are scheduled with special ranch events may require more hours. We work hard and have a lot of fun!

Stewardship participants, though working predominantly in an area of emphasis (green building/ renewable energy/ sustainable agriculture, etc.), collaborate and study in all areas of Sustainable Settings during training.

Expectations and Qualifications​

  • Stewards must be at least 21 years of age.
  • Stewards must have personal health insurance or a financial plan for any medical costs.
  • Stewards should view this experience as a job. Interns will learn all aspects of the ranch. Interns are responsible for their own learning. We are not here to entertain you.
  • Stewards must be able to lift at least 50 pounds, work outdoors in variable weather, maintain a good attitude
    and be willing to get dirty!

* Livestock, Dairy, and Management Intensive Grazing(MIG), Homestead Gardening * – working larger tracks of land for the production of meat, milk, and eggs is a critical link in sustainable food production and nutrient cycling systems. This stewardship opportunity focuses on our high mountain pasturelands and Management Intensive Grazing methods that build healthy pasture, the foundation of healthy food for our animals and us. Stewards will learn the beneficial relationships of the soil microbes, fungi, major decomposers, and healthy pasture ecologies have with the cattle, sheep, pigs and poultry in the system. Hands-on learning with our Herdsman Jared Minori, includes rotational paddock development and operation;  irrigation; soil and grass testing; forage development; livestock care; care and feeding and milking of our small Guernsey dairy herd; meat processing; product development and marketing.

How to make it happen….

To apply for upcoming Stewardships send an introductory email, resume, a statement of intent, and a list of three references with addresses and phone numbers (Please no letters). Email attachments are accepted. We will review your email and get back to you to set up a phone interview. Give us a week or so to respond to your email, if you don’t hear from us PLEASE call 970-234-5100.

*Once you have been accepted and arrive at the ranch all green Stewards will be required to sign a release of all claims.

EMAIL: info@sustainablesettings.org