A busy month for Mary...

It's been a busy month so far with retreats and animals and some beautiful weather, which is nice to think about given the snow flurries outside today and promise of lows around 

25 degrees Fahrenheit tonight, ah spring in Vermont.

First off we have some big news; the first of the spring kidding season began on Friday May 3rd, at 3 PM when Megan, delivered 3 babies in the garden. I am not making up all the three's, we all sat back and scratched our heads on that one, Megan must have a real Trinitarian streak in her.

It was a nice sunny day and Cathy had just let all the goats into the garden to eat up the weeds and left overs to get the garden ready for the spring tilling.

Cathy went into the house to grab some garden tools and when she came back out there was a real high pitched squeal from the shady spot along the garden fence. (A little shady tarp I put up the day before) When Cathy got over there all the goats were standing still staring at Megan who had finished pushing out the last baby goat, and cleaning them off! 

End tally was two males and one female added to the herd.

I was in town when I got the urgent call from Cathy, who acted as midwife to momma goat;

It was really helpful that Cathy was there and it didn't happen late at night or when we were gone, but Megan as old as she is did a great job from cleaning the little ones up to biting off the umbilical cords to nursing them. 

Though the little goobers needed a bit of help to latch on.

God has a way of really filling a day with these simple moments of amazement and wonder.

Pretty amazing event.

The kids ran to the house up the driveway really excited. 

They were even more excited to name these little cuties. 

So,..apparently their names are Sean, Fawn and Fred.

Go figure.

That does really look like she's smiling...

OK onto to more routine events.

Retreats have been coming by the bus load, or car load really.

We had the Franciscans Third Order day retreat, when

the driveway filled up with cars as the third order Franciscans came to hold their meeting.

Next we had two women who came in the retreat center like a whirlwind of energy, love and fun!

The old grey one on the left is me, but then comes Rita in the brown dress and then in the blue shirt is Mary.

Sometimes when retreats come the folks want to be alone and be quiet in prayer, sometimes it's a group with a specific agenda and workshops, but these two came and the whole retreat center came alive as if some one changed all our light bulbs in our house from 40 watts to 120 watts. Great fun.

Now don't misunderstand these two ladies found lots of time to pray in the chapel, contemplate during walks through the woods, but the fellowship and love of the faith they brought was just wonderful to experience.

And boy they were ready to pitch in anywhere! Feeding animals, making a meal, taking a tour, going for ice cream, no task was too dirty or daunting for these two.

Mary has restored an old rectory in the plains states and was used to animals. Rita didn't shy away from the chickens either, but something happened when she saw the goats.

At first it was "oh how cute" and then it was all about...

"How do I put these two in my purse and take them home?"

During their retreat we had our weekly Marian consecration group. It was a surprise to find that Mary was very much connected to this total devotion to Jesus through Mary already. In fact she came with our retreat book we used for these groups, "33 days to morning glory" by Fr. Gaitley, plus other books by him and even accounts of meeting him several times! We were all surprised by the coincidence on this one. And as before with these two dynamos Mary and Rita brought even more exuberance to our Marian consecration meeting.

After a meet and greet we went into the living room where the projection system is located and began the Fr. Gaitley, "33 days to morning glory" Marian retreat from www.allheartsafire.org

The retreat runs 33 days and culminates with a Mass, a consecration prayer, Adoration and confession. Each workshop meets once a week where we watch short videos 

from the Marian Brothers in Stockbridge, Massachusetts hosted by Fr. Gaitley, then there are prayers and litanies (which change for each week's group meeting/workshop) plus there are readings and discussions. 

Having done this retreat before I can personally vouch for the transformational power of this consecration process. It is enlightening, educating and empowering to one's faith journey. And, I can't think of a better series of workshops to offer then one that brings people closer to Jesus through Mary at a retreat center named Mary, the Mother of God! It seems very fitting to do this all important work here.

Later on we learned that Mary was quite and artist in her own right!

 Aside from religious statues and a beautiful series of Monstrances she has sold to churches and adoration chapels, she is an accomplished print maker and jeweler who designs and creates her own series of religious rings and bracelets.

You should really go to her website and check out her work, maybe even buy some stuff; it is really impressive and beautiful creations for Christ. Check it out yourself at 

www.joshuasstone.net located in Sterling Colorado.

And talking about talent, Rita is quite an accomplished photographer. She has published one book and is currently working on another, about retreat centers. 

Here are some of her shots she sent me after they left.

Our Chapel altar,

Our Chapel relic of St. Anthony,

It was very sad to see Rita and Mary leave, hopefully this is just the "beginning of a beautiful friendship" to quote Bogart.

Now with the animals it's back to work getting hay, on a bartering system with neighbors. Bartering is an important system we use here as much as possible in order to live up to that Chestertonian Distributist philosophy!

Seems like the dog is the only one with any brains in this operation, sitting it out in the shade dreaming about later that day when she will be herding goats back from the pastures again.

But there is plenty of work to be done, with summer coming quick it's time for much more painting and fixing and planting before and during the scheduled retreats; which are piling up as well.

But I can still find some time to take a walk with my daughter and enjoy the peaceful tranquility of this refuge,

We hope you too will find some time for a Marian consecration retreat or even simply a Franciscan moment with the animals or even just some quiet time, quiet enough to hear the Lord speaking to your heart. 

All those activities await you here at

The Mary Theotokos Retreat Center

in Newark VT.

Deus Tecum till then.

A MEN'S retreat for April!

On a snowy afternoon in April, 

( a typical Vermont spring day)

eight men from the Burlington area of Vermont came for a men's retreat. The group were ages 30 t0 50-ish and came with energy and enthusiasm.

The title of this retreat was "We Are Redeemed" and styled after a sort of spiritual boot camp where we all took our turns in talking, sharing leading prayers and even shared in clean up duties in the kitchen.

(Though no one could have replaced our cook; he did every meal and each one was delicious!!)

 We all led talks on the vocations men have in life, as fathers, husbands, workers, etc. These were all heartfelt discussion in which we all delved into what Christ is telling us what our duties are, as Christian men. Our first talk was lead by the Priest who joined us to offer confessions after his talk and dinner.

Several times we would share a knowing laugh as we talked about the many challenges living our vocations face when smacked up against the "popular culture".

As time wore on and we spent more time together we began to form a "band of brothers" seeing how each of us were dealing with many of the same struggles and even fears living out our vocations, and in that understanding we drew inspiration from each other as well.

Many times after we finished these talks we would join in for a sing-a-long of hymns or folks songs and always had good fun doing it!

We watched a film, "Saint and Soldiers" 

 and then there was more, prayer, adoration, more fellowship, more fantastic food from our cook 

and  even games of skill, or more like games of no skill but lots of laughs.

After the weekend was over we said our goodbyes and made plans to see each other for continued spiritual boot camps again soon.

It was a great weekend for us to rediscover our role as men in this society and share that desire to live according to God's will  with each other.

Something every husband, father, son could do with more often.

Thanks to the "We Are Redeemed" group, see you soon.

EASTER! And the goat invasion...

Easter has come to The Mary Theotokos Retreat Center.

Viva Christo Rey!

The cards and well wishes began to pour in as we prepared for happy visits from friends and family, as well as joyous celebrations at our local parish with inspired homilies by our parish Priest.

Among the Divine Mercy Novenas started on Good Friday, the completion of our 33 day consecration to Jesus through Mary, the many other prayers and events here, our retreatant, a happy Nun from the Mission Helpers of the Sacred Heart in Baltimore helped to set up the Easter morning display that most excited the 
six year old.

It was truly a joyous Easter here, but with one added element.

Goats.

Nigerian Dwarf Goats.

10 of them.

We knew they were coming, we had arranged for them to arrive later in April, but events changed and suddenly we had another Easter gift!

So, one fine Spring morning, a typical Vermont "mud season" day,

(between the snow flakes) I arose to prepare for what could no longer be avoided. I had prayed in several chapels, hoping for better  reception each time, asking if this is what God willed for us. When the transportation element we needed was offered by surprise at the last minute, I accepted His will. With the help of two young local farm girls the stalls and barns were well prepared.

We certainly had the room for them but I needed to build a sort of chute that once released from the transportation trailer would guide the seething mass of goat flesh through our long maze like barns towards their individual stalls. They were coming from a situation where they were accustomed to certain herd groupings. Once the chute was hastily thrown together,

we began the drive towards the goat location in Troy, VT, after informing Sr. Loretta she would be taking part in the goat wrangling!

She thought I was joking.

Our drive was uneventful except the mud and driveway which created quite a series of issues in successfully navigating close to the barns in Troy.

After a few hours of prep and supply loading and a lengthy chase of one determined escapee goat, we managed to get them all loaded.

This is almost the whole herd, Aaron the only male, the buck, got to ride in the car with Sr. Loretta and Cathy, to avoid any hanky panky on the trip. 

So with a few deep breaths a lots of pushing of cars through mud we splattered our way and our precious cargo across Northeast Vermont to an even more daunting driveway, ours..

with its winding hills and dales leading to the barn. Once the trailer was backed up to the wide entrance of the chute, which narrows gently towards the stalls (thank you Temple Grandin) we released the goats! All hands were on deck to chase after escapees and steer the flurry of tiny hooves through the maze to the stalls. All as gently and lovingly as possible!

add captions like, "wait, c'm here you" or "hold on, stop her" or "come out of there you" or "NO go in there you", etc; punctuated by heavy breathing, mostly on my part.

Alright, it was time to show these goats who was in charge!

THEM! I'll go in the stall, it's safer!

OK, enough fooling around, time to get these gals to bed.

So far everything is going well. Considering what I know about goats comes from the "Dummies Guide" and local REAL farmers.

But the are eating well, exploring the pasture (waiting for the snow to melt) and being very friendly and docile. 
Here's a bit of the rogues gallery:

And the big man of the harem is the buck, Aaron.

This female enjoying a brushing is going to have a baby in next month,...the goat not Cathy.

So soon we will begin with our dairy work. Nigerian Dwarf goats have a high butter fat content so we will be making cream, yogurt, cheese and other fresh dairy for our future retreatants.

It's a good thing the herding dog was on duty that day,

oh yeah, that's right she was in the house sleeping in my chair, nice.

So we continue our work at the Mary Theotokos Retreat Center, we hope to see you for a Marian Consecration Retreat or Poustinia or goat wrangling, or just a visit to get away from the chaos of the world; at any rate we will be here, but now it's time for me to take back that chair from the dog.

Deus Tecum

Happy Divine Mercy Sunday