During this migration season, when as many as 150,000 birds are passing through the skies over our home in Beaver County on a given night, Jarrod Kinkley, our Director of Ecology and Environment, was thinking about ways to make their journey a little easier.
Knowing that our Sisters would be eager to make this Baden land even more hospitable to our friends in flight, Jarrod brought in some home-grown birdhouse gourds for Sisters and staff to decorate before placing them strategically around the grounds.
Sisters learned the “push” and “pull” factors that guide birds along their journey, including the supportive role native plants play in feeding them and that, incredibly, birds can follow the stars to some extent, thanks to the high concentration of iron in their beaks that allows them to find magnetic north.
Sister Jeanette Bussen marveled at the little creatures’ innate knowing, happy to contribute a small piece to their habitat through a birdhouse. “It’s incredible how smart they are,” she says. Just a few weeks earlier across the hallway, Sister Jeanette joined other Sisters to help Emily Kramer, our Farm and Food Security Coordinator, start seedlings for the new growing season.
These tiny seedlings, so carefully and lovingly placed by the hands of our Sisters, will be nurtured in our “grow room” at the barn under optimal growing conditions, allowing us to get an early start on crops that have a longer time to harvest, like tomatoes and peppers.
This maximizes the harvest potential in the growing season and our ability to provide fresh, organic produce to our neighbors in need. From there, the plants will take root in our 50 ft. by 50 ft. Twin Trinity garden, growing all season long to feed both our Sisters and our dear neighbors helped by local food pantries.
“Due to limited cold storage facilities,” Emily explains, many of these pantries “aren’t able to store much when it comes to fresh food. Fortunately, I can drop off our produce right before guests arrive. This way, our produce donations stay fresh for clients. This is the best food you can get. It’s harvested no more than 48 hours prior, free of harmful pesticides, and grown just a few miles down the road.”
Partnering with the generosity of these community organizations seeks to offer home and haven to our neighbors.
We’re also excited about a new space taking shape on the grounds – Joseph’s Canopy – an outdoor classroom and reflection space just above our community gardens and orchard that we hope will offer both material and spiritual sustenance to our human and, as Jarrod says, “more-than-human” sisters and brothers. The space invites us to slow down, to look up, to feel and breathe in what’s around us and inside us and to be transformed by that awareness.
“Woven from fallen branches gathered on the grounds, this seeming pile of detritus and spent life comes together to form and build new soil, new life for all beings,” Jarrod explains. “Offering home and haven to the birds who are flying overhead tonight and in the nights to come, the dead hedge offers sustenance for them. It also extends an invitation to us. An invitation to consider where we are called to return and renewal. An invitation to re-encounter ourselves and those around us in service to the common good.”
If you would like to come and spend some time here, we would be so happy to welcome you!
Get in touch to schedule a lunchtime visit, or feel free to stop by and walk the grounds anytime! Until then, enjoy this “bird’s-eye” view of an ephemeral spring near the top of the grounds!