The Flock at Holy Myrrh Bearers

Article by Sister Eugenia

Holy Myrrh Bearers is an Orthodox women's monastery in upstate New York and we now have seven women working and praying here. Founded in 1977, we are a monastic community for women of the Orthodox Church in America. We have been situated since 1983 in Otsego County in the scenic upper-Catskill region of New York State. We are members of the Cooperstown Chamber of Commerce and are honored to be part of Central New York's "Leatherstocking Country."

Originally, the livestock came as scrubs from the local auction to help reclaim the abandoned fields of the farms. We started with goats, then added a few sheep. Over the years the scrub goats were upgraded to American and Purebred Saanen goats with a view to developing a dairy. The matriarch of some of our girls is an old Alpine with three legs. She recently stopped kidding due to decrepitude and her "enforcer" role is much curtailed (a day without bashing heads is a day without sunshine). She now has a new career as fiber girl. She grows poor grade cashmere, but took second place in the county fair. First place went to our Pyrenees cross year old guard dog. At one point we had a "rescue" angora goat who died of old age and a small herd of cashmere goats - the touch of the kid in full fleece is an ecstatic experience unrivalled in my tactile history. Promptly around December 21, just as the book said, Maeve would begin to shed, and I would go out and comb her. It was a chore to find just the right comb, but finally she and I decided an undercoat comb generally used

for dogs would do. She swept the blue ribbon every year she competed at the county fair. While various reasons led us to give the cashmeres to an Episcopalian convent in Greenwich, New York, we do plan to rebuild a small cashmere herd in the future.

The sheep were part of the pasture reclamation at first, but now are well on their way to making enough money to keep themselves. The foundation of our purebred Romney flock was a ram from Liberty Ridge Farm in Rome, New York. As he was black, his name was Baa. Two years ago, in a learning experience, our hearts were broken to put him down because he was intensely ill from the ovine AIDS, OPP. We also have a group of commercial ewes, accepted as rescue sheep from various flocks including Corriedales, Oxford, Tunis, cheviot and merino. We now are rigorously testing for OPP, CLA, CAE (goats) and Johnnes and have a closed flock so we no longer accept rescues. Last but not least are my favorites, purebred Icelandic's. At last testing we have about 88 sheep.

Passages from the Bible really come alive when we're dealing with the stock. Things like Jesus' saying, "A stranger they will not follow, but the shepherd they follow because they know his voice." There's nothing like chasing runaway sheep to vividly recall Isaiah's, "All we like sheep have gone astray"! Sorting girls in the barnyard at milking time portrays, "I am the door", and, "As a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats." Last night leading the ram lambs to better grass I thought of, "He makes me lie down in green pastures." At lambing time we think of "he calls them by name." Yes, all 80-some have names, know their names, most come to their names and the shepherd can distinguish every individual voice in the field and know just who's talking.

The majority of the fleeces we have spun are processed at Green Mountain Spinnery in Putney, Vermont. They use as "green" a process as they can to keep away from harsh chemicals and petroleum in processing the fiber. We have fiber made up into sport weight 2 ply yarn which we sell at farmers' markets and online. This year we're want to see if we can get a market for carded roving, raw fleece and a lighter weight yarn spun from merino cross lamb fleece.

The abbess, Mother Raphaela, was a 4-H-er as a girl. Her family had sheep and then a grade A goat dairy. She really gets into the kidding season - she loves helping to deliver kids. Another sister, Mother Seraphima, who recently relocated for health reasons, is a whiz at knitting. She's a real groupie of Anna Zilboorg (whom she met at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival) and reads the Zimmerman books avidly. While I was learning to spin, she would find patterns that used whatever weight I had and knit or crochet something up either to sell or to enter at the county fair. The former farm manager, who also relocated for health reasons, was a knitter and marketer for products. We now have two new sisters who make Orthodox prayer ropes to sell, similar to Catholic rosaries. In another article we hope to talk more about that aspect of our work.

The family of Elizabeth Braun gave us a large library of fiber books, looms, spindles, cards, and warping equipment. We're intensely interested in learning to weave products - as soon as we can figure out how to add a couple more minutes to the day. Actually, with seven of us here sharing the work, those minutes will be available. For awhile there were just three of us and things got 'way behind! The animals and fiber work are conducive to the monastic way of life. Obviously, a farm needs plenty of pasture, which means farther distances from the technological noise of urban society. As I mentioned above, the anecdotal and parabolic stories take immediate meaning that are largely lost in the mechanized life of so many western Christians. Carding fiber or knitting or spinning are wonderful ways to sit and meditate and pray as the fleece slips through the fingers. One has to relax, especially to spin, and spinning relaxes as one does it.

The cenobitic monastic day is broken up into seven discrete times of communal prayer as well ongoing personal/private prayer. It work out to about every three hours: 5am matins;7am; 9am; 12pm; 3pm ; 5pm vespers and 7pm compline. We are out all hours of the day and night tending stock and see and are exalted by God's handiwork in nature: thunder storms with the rolling voice and stab of lightning. I often think of Shakespeare's King Lear storm scene. Brilliant twinkling stars on a clear night as I lie in the hay with sheep cuddling and chewing cuds. Swirling snow and ram lambs noiselessly romping amid clouds of white in the crisp moonlight. I marvel at the texture and variety of fleece among our girls, especially as it falls away under its own weight from the shears (I use blades). Temple Grandin is seemingly making a big splash in peoples' consciousness with her work on understanding animals. We see some of those very same principles on a daily, even hourly basis as we handle the girls very "hands on." It's amazing how much a sheep or goat understands when it's not nervous or thrown into a new and scary situation. They love routine with just enough novelty to keep life interesting. This is especially true of the Icelandic sheep. Even the commercial breeds can pick up a few vocabulary words - if it's something that's important to her.

For more information on our spoke sheep Maude and the rest of the Holy Myrrh Bearers flock, please see http://www.holymyrrhbearers.com/maude's_page!.htm. Anyone can access our website on www.holymyrrhbearers.com for more information on us, our online store and life at Holy Myrrh Bearers.