A Fruitful Harvest

Both fresh and mellowed fruits, my lover, I have kept in store for you.

Song of Songs 7:14

Sr. Celeste and I have been enjoying the fruits of our garden, sharing them, canning them, making jam and jelly with them and thanking our Bridegroom for these gifts that He has blessed us with this year.  We thank those who provided us with plants and seeds for our garden.  This year we started our garden in a different location than last year (closer to the monastery) and downsized it quite a bit (much more manageable!).  For various reasons we tried an interesting method of planting each plant in a bag of topsoil or a pot, in rows, on top of landscaping fabric mulched with grass clippings.  It may sound strange, but it worked wonderfully for us (no weeds!).  We have been blessed with a delicious crop, especially the multitudes of tomatoes!

Seminarian Musil helps to make salsa

We were also blessed with the opportunity to join in the harvest of the fruits of others: blueberries at Deacon Bill Fredrick's house and blackberries at my grandma's.  With these berries and other fruits and veggies from our garden we produced many batches of various flavors of jam and jelly.  We spent the day last Saturday by selling our jam, jelly and banana and zucchini bread at the ethnic food sale at St. Emilian parish in Brunswick, Ohio, in the morning and at the Carpatho-Rusyn Society's Vatra at the Shrine of Our Lady of Mariapoch in the afternoon and evening.  We sparked the curiosity of many with some of our unusual flavors, such as raspberry jalapeno jelly, tomato jelly and pumpkin butter.  The raised eyebrows which turned into smiles proved that providing samples of these flavors was a good idea...

Selling jelly at the Vatra

As we enjoy the last harvests from our garden we ask for your prayers as we continue to discern God's will in the formation of our monastery and seek to bear fruit that will endure.

We hope you can make it to our fall work day this Saturday!  Please remember to RSVP!