Meet-a-Student: Sarah Dannenbrink
- Laura Wayte
- 1 hour ago
- 3 min read
Arrived at Deck: March 2026 for 12-month internship
Age: 25
Raised in: Oregon and Arizona
Graduated: University of Arizona in Latin American Studies
Favorite Animal: "Sheep, but really all of them are interesting."
I spoke with Sarah while she took a break making some of the 8,000 Swedish dumplings that Deck Family Farm will sell at Scandi Fest this year. Working with Jeremy in our kitchen has been a wonderful place for her to share the capabilities she brought with her to Junction City, but she has a lot of other interests and skills to develop.
Once you start talking with Sarah, you'll realize one of her interests in life is skill development.
After earning her college degree, Sarah began down a varied path of work-based service learning. She spent one year working for AmeriCorps in Arizona, another six months as a camp counselor at an outdoor camp in Vermont, and an extended internship in Moab, Utah, learning how to build straw-bale homes.
Immediately before coming to our farm, Sarah worked in Leadville, Colorado, as a pastry chef and barista. Her mother started and runs a bakery serving croissants, pastries and bread, and Sarah's particularly interested in sourdough. So she is already known - and appreciated - on the farm for her love of baking. You can find a cake or other treats in the kitchen on a regular basis.
In all those jobs and internships, she managed to find her way to a garden, helping with community and youth garden programs wherever she could. Coming to our education program means she is adding regenerative livestock farming to her agriculture skills.
"In a sense I'm here to find out where this is taking me," she said. "But also it feels like a full-circle experience being here in the sense that I grew up on a very small farm in The Dalles with a garden, goats and chickens. It was my normal as a child."
She continued, "Coming here feels like an interesting reconnect with an earlier part of my life but also there's so much that's new to me with animal husbandry, and value-added processing and the [regenerative] system as a whole is fairly complex. It's exciting. I want to learn as much as I can."
In discussing her favorite animal at Deck, the answer came immediately: Sheep.
"This is kind of funny because I've probably interacted with this animal the least," she laughed. "I've had two or three experiences with sheepherding, so maybe this is less about the animal and more about the dynamic of sheepherding. I have enjoyed so much sheepherding on foot with another person. Somehow it's quite exhilarating!"
But all the animals present an opportunity, she said, to learn different ways of interacting. She has participated in pig farrowing (assisting with the births), goat milking, and has worked extensively on the poultry team since March.
"Each of the animals, individually and as a herd, has their own appeal to me. Having these baby piglets, watching them, sort of trying to help them nurse but trying not to interfere too much, but just being present for that is really interesting."
Next up, she'll be learning the dairy jobs of herdsman and milk-parlor lead. She hasn't worked with cows before, but commented on what it's like to work with our few goats.
"Goats have such unique personalities, not to anthropomorphize them, but to think about what it's like to work with them and how to figure out how to do what I'm trying to do, like keeping the goat from sticking her foot in the milk bucket, for example," she said. "It is like I am trying to predict her behavior to a certain extent. It's fun. I really like that. Being around the animals and observing their behavior and then also trying to do my job."
It's a challenging, inter-species puzzle that she says helps her to know herself better.
"When I started doing goat milking, I would find myself feeling very frustrated when she would stick her foot in the pail. But ultimately I feel like I'm working with myself, recognizing my own kind of reactions and being able to regulate myself. Being around animals gives me self-awareness in a different way than I get with being around humans."
