By Thea Jarvis

When the Dominican Sisters in Cumming moved to their seventeen and a half acre farm off Route 53 just three years ago, they barely knew a spade from a pitchfork.

In all their training at the Dominican motherhouse in Adrian, Michigan, they had never been taught to milk a goat, plow a field, make their own furniture, or bake their own bread.

“When we first got to the farm,” recalls Sister June Racicot, “there was so much to do – and we didn’t know how to do it! The farmhouse needed work, the barn needed mending, and the garden had to be started somehow.”

It was an opportunity for their neighbors to learn that they, too, had gifts to share.

“We visited the hardware and lumber stores and, as we were buying our supplies,” Sister June continues, “we asked questions of people who had worked the land all their lives. They laughed at us good naturedly, brought their tools, and helped us get started.”

From this humble beginning, the Sisters have become lovers of the land, tending their homestead as a living legacy passed on by generations of mountain people.

The Dairy Goats

Life on the farm is moving in its simplicity. As a registered dairy farm, the care of the goats is the first order of business.

Each goat has a Biblical name. Obadiah, Jedediah, Lea, and Susie (Susanna) are among the animals that roam the five acres in pasture and produce rich, sweet milk.

The sisters have become adept at turning goat’s milk into cheese, butter, yogurt, and ice cream. This they consume themselves or sell or barter with their neighbors in the countryside.

The animal population of the farm is limited to the goats, a fine, broad German shepherd named “Munchen,” and a black and white cat with an avid appetite for mouse.

The sisters tried their hand at raising animals for slaughter when they received a Black Angus bred cow for Christmas one year. They found they hadn’t the heart for the job.

Sister Kathryn Cliatt admits: “We just couldn’t eat an animal we had raised. When you live eyeball to eyeball with a cow every day, you find that you don’t like beef all that much.”

While beef is not a part of their diet, the three-quarter acre garden provides plenty of fresh produce. An old fashioned root cellar stores potatoes, squash, and canned goods, and newly planted fruit trees offer cherries for the picking. A rural barter system brings in wild rabbit and pork from local pigs.

An Alternate Lifestyle

Sitting in the well-scrubbed parlor of the main house, it is obvious that the sisters have opted for an alternative lifestyle. The couch and chairs and the beds in the rooms beyond have been fashioned by the sisters themselves. They are well made and sturdy, with a rustic touch.

The airy country kitchen is abrim with good natural foods. The stocky woodstove promised a warm and cozy winter.

Sister Nancyanne Turner’s weavings dress the walls in earthy, natural fibers, and a stately old spinning wheel awaits the goat hair it will soon turn.

“We chose to live on a farm because it seemed to be the most contemplative lifestyle,” says Sister Kathryn. “We needed a place where we could reflect, share common prayer, and remain hopeful in our work with the rural poor.”

The farm also gives the sisters a chance to separate themselves from the consumer orientation that pervades late twentieth century life.

Sister Kathryn believes that “We have to find alternate ways of living our lives. We have learned that it is possible to live on a sum equivalent to that received from Social Security and food stamps if you supplement with a garden and live simply.

Sister June cites another plus for farm living: “Here, we really live among the people. We chose a forty-year-old farmstead and worked hard to put it in order. We are more acceptable and in a better position to minister to the community because we are here on the farm.”

Visitors

Farm life and the peace it engenders, attracts a fair number of visitors. Members of the Dominican community stop by occasionally to refresh themselves in the quiet of the mountains.

Two young medical students have pitched their tent on the sister’s doorstep for two summers and have helped with work at the farm and “The Place.” They are planning to return for their third year.

Those who come to the farm find a roughly hewn barnwood cross that hangs on the far wall of the sisters’ living room. It is compellingly stark, but alive and attractive in its strength.

It is a fitting symbol of the life that the sisters follow on the farm – a life that is simple and basic and rather plain, but one that is challenging and real and remarkably in turn with the call of the Lord.