Feeding the Monks
03/13/09 05:05 PM Filed in: Mexico
Soledad Monastery feeds itself, situated as it is on a large parcel of farmland. Much of the food consumed by the monks and their guests is grown right here.
The principal crop is corn. Many rural Mexicans still subsist on corn they grow themselves. The monks follow their example. A friend told me how, as a little girl, one of her jobs was to bring a galvanized steel bucket of the family’s corn to the corner store, to have it ground into meal for tortillas. When I came across this hand-cranked grinder in front of one of the farm buildings, I thought the good fathers of Soledad Monastery manage to avoid even the small expenditure of the miller’s fee.
Later I realized that this tool is used to grind some of the corn into chicken scratch. Scores of chickens live in primitive surroundings; more forest than barnyard.
In the past, any chickens I’ve ever seen lived in coops or ran around in dooryards. But if no one clips their wings, they can and do fly--they’re birds, aren’t they? Many of the monastery’s chickens roost in trees.
Chickens seem exotic when perched in trees; much showier than doves or pigeons. I’ve paid good money to ecotour guides to catch a flash of color high in a tree. But these are just chickens. The farmer interplants squash with corn, a New World agricultural technique that predates the arrival of the Spanish by centuries, and one that remains unchanged even in the high-tech Twenty-First Century. I’m sure the monks enjoy winter squash with their dinners, but these are not for them. They have been halved with a machete to feed the chickens.
This adolescent fowl ran across my path, its appearance reminding me of how I looked as an awkward thirteen-year-old nerd.
The farm doesn’t buy carefully sexed chicks in cardboard boxes, chicks bred for high egg production. The flock just reproduces at will, producing all the eggs and chicken soup the monastery needs. I saw birds of all ages: broody hens sitting on chicks, a proud rooster strutting through the flock. Several pigs occupy pens—future carnitas, perhaps. This little guy peers out through his front door—a gate fashioned from an old bedspring.
I often see bedsprings used as fencing. Not long ago, in a vacant lot near my home, I saw a mattress undergoing conversion into a section of innerspring fencing.
Some things seem so simple in Mexico. Need a fence? Got an old mattress? Just flick your Bic. Rarely have I seen Mexican farmers convert cornstalks into silage. They shock dried stalks to store them. A lot of nutrients probably get lost that way, but silos are expensive as are machines for chopping stalks, and capital for investing in them is scarce. Cheaper to stack stalks up off the ground so they don’t compost. When animals get hungry enough, they’ll eat them—even if they’re dry and crunchy.
Burros tethered in the cornfield feed on stubble. Their droppings fertilize the field. This farm contains many such small efficiencies. The monastery practices careful conservation of resources. The harvest is safely in, and it’s not yet time for planting the new crop. During the interlude, the farmer, an employee of the monks, busies himself with roadbuilding. Working alone, he cobbles a half-kilometer-long stretch of driveway. The work will take a long time, but at the monastery, time and cobblestones are resources available in abundance.
Looking out from the cornfield, three crosses form a sort of mini-Calvary, standing on a rise overlooking a copse of huizaches. This is indeed a rural setting, close to nature, close to our roots, and comforting for all that.
Soledad Monastery is a small utopia, supporting itself with little claim on the world’s resources. On this farm, the earth produces food... that feeds men... who spend entire lives praying and meditating. Mule dung enables worship of the dung’s Creator—how perfect is that?
The principal crop is corn. Many rural Mexicans still subsist on corn they grow themselves. The monks follow their example. A friend told me how, as a little girl, one of her jobs was to bring a galvanized steel bucket of the family’s corn to the corner store, to have it ground into meal for tortillas. When I came across this hand-cranked grinder in front of one of the farm buildings, I thought the good fathers of Soledad Monastery manage to avoid even the small expenditure of the miller’s fee.
Later I realized that this tool is used to grind some of the corn into chicken scratch. Scores of chickens live in primitive surroundings; more forest than barnyard.
In the past, any chickens I’ve ever seen lived in coops or ran around in dooryards. But if no one clips their wings, they can and do fly--they’re birds, aren’t they? Many of the monastery’s chickens roost in trees.
Chickens seem exotic when perched in trees; much showier than doves or pigeons. I’ve paid good money to ecotour guides to catch a flash of color high in a tree. But these are just chickens. The farmer interplants squash with corn, a New World agricultural technique that predates the arrival of the Spanish by centuries, and one that remains unchanged even in the high-tech Twenty-First Century. I’m sure the monks enjoy winter squash with their dinners, but these are not for them. They have been halved with a machete to feed the chickens.
This adolescent fowl ran across my path, its appearance reminding me of how I looked as an awkward thirteen-year-old nerd.
The farm doesn’t buy carefully sexed chicks in cardboard boxes, chicks bred for high egg production. The flock just reproduces at will, producing all the eggs and chicken soup the monastery needs. I saw birds of all ages: broody hens sitting on chicks, a proud rooster strutting through the flock. Several pigs occupy pens—future carnitas, perhaps. This little guy peers out through his front door—a gate fashioned from an old bedspring.
I often see bedsprings used as fencing. Not long ago, in a vacant lot near my home, I saw a mattress undergoing conversion into a section of innerspring fencing.
Some things seem so simple in Mexico. Need a fence? Got an old mattress? Just flick your Bic. Rarely have I seen Mexican farmers convert cornstalks into silage. They shock dried stalks to store them. A lot of nutrients probably get lost that way, but silos are expensive as are machines for chopping stalks, and capital for investing in them is scarce. Cheaper to stack stalks up off the ground so they don’t compost. When animals get hungry enough, they’ll eat them—even if they’re dry and crunchy.
Burros tethered in the cornfield feed on stubble. Their droppings fertilize the field. This farm contains many such small efficiencies. The monastery practices careful conservation of resources. The harvest is safely in, and it’s not yet time for planting the new crop. During the interlude, the farmer, an employee of the monks, busies himself with roadbuilding. Working alone, he cobbles a half-kilometer-long stretch of driveway. The work will take a long time, but at the monastery, time and cobblestones are resources available in abundance.
Looking out from the cornfield, three crosses form a sort of mini-Calvary, standing on a rise overlooking a copse of huizaches. This is indeed a rural setting, close to nature, close to our roots, and comforting for all that.
Soledad Monastery is a small utopia, supporting itself with little claim on the world’s resources. On this farm, the earth produces food... that feeds men... who spend entire lives praying and meditating. Mule dung enables worship of the dung’s Creator—how perfect is that?
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