IGF046 In Good Faith with Srs. Barbara Hagel and Jeanette DeYoung, gardeners, beekeepers, and educators

Sister Maxine  
This is In Good Faith, a conversation about the experience of living faith in everyday life. I'm Sister Maxine, and my guests are Sister Barbara Hagel and Sister Jeanette deYoung, Dominican Sisters of Mission San Jose in Fremont, California. They are also gardeners, beekeepers, and educators whose work exemplifies the Dominican Sisters' leadership in caring for creation. The Dominican campus is home to a 5000-square-foot vegetable garden, a community garden, fruit trees, olive trees dating to the early 1800s, a meadow, and over 1 million honeybees. It's a place not only of great beauty and good food. Above all, it is a place of education, where the local community gathers with the sisters to learn about sustainable living. Sister Barbara is the Sustainability Coordinator for the Dominican Sisters and Sister Jeanette has served the community in health care as a registered nurse. They join me today from the Dominican campus in Fremont.

Welcome, Sister Barbara and Sister Jeanette. Before we talk specifically about the gardens and the trees and beekeeping, I would like to ask both of you: What drew you to this ministry? Sister Barbara, you were a school principal for several years. How did you discern that you were called to a ministry to care for creation?

Sister Barbara  
I've always love nature. Outside time is really important to me. And I just really connect well with God and nature. It's an important part of my life and has been since my youth. I was a teacher and a principal, as you said, for 29 years in Catholic schools, and education has also been in my blood. So I remember teaching my little brothers in the garage at home whenever I got a chance. So I am totally into education also. And at one of our principal meetings, we had a talk on care of creation, and how to include it in the curriculum. At that conference, they mentioned Genesis Farm. And I think you're probably familiar with that--it's in New Jersey. And it was just--I was enthralled. As soon as I got a chance, I went there--a few years later, actually. And what an experience it was. I spent 11 weeks immersed in eco-spirituality and care of creation. And I left with a very, very deep conviction and desire to respond to the growing needs of caring for our planet. Our congregation really recognized the need for that work also, in in that same area. And they named me Sustainability Coordinator. I was thrilled.

Sister Maxine  
Can you say a little bit more about what eco-spirituality is?

Sister Barbara  
Eco-spirituality is really connecting God with nature. And it's an easy connection, because actually the first Bible was probably nature. We see God everywhere in nature and eco-spirituality brings that alive and lets you immerse in that. So it was just a really profound experience for me.

Sister Maxine  
And Sister Jeanette, you come from a very different background, a registered nurse, and you've ministered in healthcare for many years. And I understand you also have a background in technology. So for you, how did these experiences connect you with care of creation?

Sister Jeanette  
Much of what Sister Barbara said, I can also relate to. Early on, I think I was about five years old, we started taking camping trips every summer. And we had probably about a month. We were usually on our way to candidate to visit the relatives. But we stopped at national parks on our way up and our way down, and I think we hit about every national park in the western United States. And they were so beautiful. And I think it was an experience I still live in. I can close my eyes and picture so many of those spots. And I think as time went on, I continued to enjoy travel, especially the beauties of nature in different places. I remember having the opportunity of going to Costa Rica, and seeing its rainforests and beautiful flowers and the different types of animals. Also had a chance to go to China with my brother. And it was a very different atmosphere. I remember watching these men climb in ladders to pollinate each little flower, because the bee population was so low. And another part that I think affected me: I remember when I was working in the care center, and one of our sisters would die, which was to be expected. And I found myself when someone passed away, you know, once everything was done and taken care of, I would find myself walking outside and somehow or other, that connection with nature, and that lifecycle was so important. And it brought a real peace to me after the death of someone. And I think it really brought back meaning into that whole process. As time went on, the different assignments that I had, frequently I'd plant some kind of garden and just enjoy watching the plants grow and eating the produce also.

Sister Maxine  
Yes, there's another good benefit. So if, if I was on the Dominican campus right now, Sister Barbara, looking at the garden, can you describe what I would be seeing?

Sister Barbara  
We have two gardens. One is in the upper part of the property, and one is in the lower part. And both of them have raised beds for us older folks, which makes it a lot easier to plant and to harvest. You would see an orchard with fruit. You would see beehives. You would see our community gardens starting. You would see--the beauty of our motherhouse is astounding. It's set in the hills of Fremont--the foothills, basically--and it's just amazing. We have palm trees and 200-plus olive trees. You would be amazed.

Sister Maxine  
What kinds of vegetables would I be seeing this time of the year?

Sister Barbara  
Right now I just harvested a batch of asparagus. Artichokes are growing profusely. We have all kinds of lettuces going. Since we have some Asian volunteers, we have some Asian varieties of greens, which I can't pronounce all of the names, but they are fascinating, and they taste delicious. Let's see, what else is growing right now? The rhubarb is up.

Sister Jeanette  
The carrots and beets, we just harvested.

Sister Barbara  
Mm-hmmm. We brought a batch of broccoli over, and Swiss chard is up also. So there's just such a variety right now with spring. We have such a long growing period, Maxine, that it really makes a difference here. We can grow almost all year long. So we're really spoiled.

Sister Maxine  
That's something here in the Midwest that we cannot do.

Sister Barbara  
Right.

Sister Maxine  
Now, are your gardens, organic? Pesticide-free?

Sister Barbara  
They are definitely organic. I don't want anything to harm my bees. So we do not use pesticides, and most of our fertilizers are also organic. It doesn't matter as much with the fertilizers as it does with the pesticides.

Sister Maxine  
That leads to my next question. So if I'm there and I'm looking at the garden, am I going to see a lot of bugs or weeds?

Sister Barbara  
Actually, no.

Sister Jeanette  
We have a unique way of taking care of our weeds, which seems to work very well. We found a tree company that needed to dispose of their woodchips, and they'd cut the trees down and wood chip them and then they would bring them to us. And depending upon what the tree was would determine where we would put the woodchips. And it's a great read retarder and it also, in time, will turn into a rather rich soil. So actually, when you look into our gardens, you see a lot of woodchips covering the ground and covering many of the weeds.

Sister Maxine  
From what you describe, the variety of vegetables and the long growing season, where does all the food go?

Sister Barbara  
Most of it goes to our kitchen. We have 60 people living here on campus, so takes a bit to feed 60 people. We also share it with our volunteers and our staff. And we supply a couple of food banks with any excess food that we have. So especially in the fall, we have tons of persimmons. We have two huge old persimmon trees and lots of lemons, which are almost year-round. And all of that--we try not to let anything go to waste. So we share.

Sister Maxine  
You mentioned earlier about a community garden that's beginning. Can you say a little bit more about that?

Sister Jeanette  
Oh my, that that is a very interesting topic. And, you know, we had a grant at the beginning of this, to start our gardens or to continue our gardens maybe with a little more structure. And the first phase was our vegetable garden. And the second phase was the lower garden with raised beds and orchard trees. But the third phase was the community garden. And because we had been rather busy with the first two and a number of other things, it just was taking us a while to get going on that. But we needed water in our orchard, and our irrigation system was having trouble. So we happened to be at a bee meeting, and we told one of the people that was there, we were looking for somebody that might be able to help us out with the irrigation system. And she says, "Oh, we have just the person." And about 10 feet from us was a guy named Guy. And she called him over. And he's a master gardener. And his expertise is irrigation systems. And he said, "Oh, I'd love to come and see it." So he came, and Barbara actually gave him a tour of the garden, and got to this one part of the garden, which was more weeds than anything else. And she's just, "You know, in the future, we hope to be able to start a community garden there." And he just lit up. "Oh, wow, wonderful. I would love to be part of that." Well, one thing led to another. He's now the garden manager. And I think he could get anything to grow.

Sister Maxine  
How many folks have a plot there in the garden, in the community garden?

Sister Barbara  
We have about 40 plots, and I think most of them are gone. The last time I talked to Guy, I think there were three left. So one plot belongs to a 12-year-old girl, who is doing a great job with it. Last Saturday, we actually had our first experience with education, which is one of our goals. And Guy held a class on the soil, and how to develop it in the garden. We had a great turnout. And we just felt like our Dominican Ministry of Education continues through the garden. And I think the greatest joy with the garden is seeing the people come together. The wonderful community consists of old people and young people and many cultures and ethnic backgrounds. And it was just great to see people sharing tools and plants and information and just really interacting with each other in such a positive way. That's been a real blessing.

Sister Jeanette  
And Guy is there probably five or six days a week. All of this is volunteer on his part. And he will come and anyone that needs information about what to plant, how to plant, what to do with the soil. He's a font of information. And he's just very enjoyable to talk to, and I think that he's really bonded with many of the gardeners, and they look forward to just talking with him and getting his advice about things.

Sister Maxine  
A little bit earlier, you mentioned the olive grove that dates back to when the Spanish missions were established around 1800. Can you describe the olive grove?

Sister Barbara  
Actually, the olive trees--we have over 200--are just scattered all over our property. Because we live on that old mission property. We harvest them every year, and for a number of years we had the community participate in that harvest. They all came together on a day, and we had lunch for them, and it was really a neat experience. Since then, we've had a company do that, but we do press our olives now and create our own olive oil. So we send them off to Modesto to a friend who has a small company where he presses his own olives, and he does it for us. And it is on sale by the way at our boutique every fall.

Sister Maxine  
I will have to get a link for that and put it in the show notes of the podcast, so if people can go on a website and order it that might be quite a special gift.

Sister Barbara  
It's actually only available September through November, I believe.

Sister Jeanette  
If they go on a website, it explains a lot about the different things that we sell through the boutique. With the pandemic, so much of it did go online and actually it worked out very nicely, so I'm sure we will continue some online products and more than likely the olive oil, which we tend to--like the honey--we tend to sell out early.

Sister Maxine  
We're going to pause for a brief break. This is In Good Faith, a program of A Nun's Life Ministry. We want to thank our sponsors and individual donors like you, whose support makes the In Good Faith program possible. Please visit anunslife.org to make a donation or to become a sponsor of the ministry. We'll be right back.

Welcome back. This is Sister Maxine of A Nun's Life Ministry, and my guests, Sister Barbara Hagel and Sister Jeanette deYoung, Dominican Sisters of Mission San Jose. They help to advance the congregation's care for creation efforts. Visit the congregation online at msjdominicans.org. Before the break, Sisters, you talked briefly about how the garden is a place of education and how that's important to you as Dominicans. Can you expand on that, on the role of education in the Dominican tradition, and in your mission as Dominican Sisters?

Sister Barbara  
Our mission is education, especially serving the young, the poor and the vulnerable. And that's such an important, strong piece of who we are St. Dominic was a teacher and taught against the heresies of his time. Our Sister Maria Pia Backes, who's our foundress, came from Brooklyn, New York to San Francisco to respond to the needs of the German people who needed schools. And it's a great story. They left Brooklyn, eight days later--on the train the whole time--they arrived in San Francisco. They came on Saturday and on Monday they opened school. I think of what it takes today to open a school and I just laugh! That always amazes me, that story. They were quite a group, but we are carrying on the tradition in the garden of education. It's a very important piece of our mission here. Volunteers come to learn. They're more than happy to help, but they're really here to learn. And many of them will go home and start their own garden plots, and extend that knowledge to other people, which is such a joy.

Sister Jeanette  
One of the points Barbara and I talked about earlier, with Dominic and with Mother Pia--what they did, they looked at what the need was at the time. And I think we are carrying on that tradition by looking at the need of our time. And I think climate change, care of creation are definitely needs of our time. And I think the garden provides a real opportunity, a real educational opportunity, to help people realize we can do something about this. We can care for our earth. So I think in some sense we truly are carrying on the work of Dominic and Mother Pia.

Sister Maxine  
So let's talk about the honeybees for a bit. I understand that the Dominican Sisters have 16 hives with over a million honeybees.

Sister Barbara  
We do.

Sister Maxine  
That's amazing. How did you get started with the honeybees?

Sister Barbara  
Well, a friend gave me one hive and I--at this point I think of it as stupidly--took it. Because I did not have a clue the depth of knowledge you need to keep a hive. They are very complex little creatures and it's been just a very interesting experience as I moved along. I went from one hive to five hives to 13 hives and I think this year we have 16, as you said. They keep increasing, which is they tell me is a good sign of a good beekeeper, but we'll see. You have a dog or a cat, but you keep bees. And that's a big difference. They're wild and free creatures. You can't fence them in or shut them in. They have to choose to stay with you. So that's a big piece of it. And you have to provide the right conditions for them to want to stay. The right size box, you need to feed them unnecessary, controlled swarming.

Sister Maxine  
When you say swarming, what do you mean?

Sister Barbara  
That's their way of reproducing. In the spring that new life just searches everywhere, and the bees are part of this search. So as there are many flowers and blossoms and trees around for them to forage, they just grow greatly in number. And when they sense that there are too many bees in the box, they start the swarming process, which means making new queen cells. You know, as soon as that process starts, they're intent on doing that. So once the queen cells are made, the existing queen will take off with half of the population in the hive, and try to find a new hive. Well, in nature, they're not very successful today, because there's so few hollow trees for them to find and natural places for them to create a hive. So now part of being a beekeeper is trying to control those swarms so that they don't leave and there're just different things you do to manipulate the hive to try to discourage swarming, but it's really exciting to see a swarm. You're like in this cloud of bees. And they have no interest in you. You can walk right through them, and they will not sting you. They're all full and think it's been Thanksgiving dinner because they gorged themselves with honey before they left the hive. Yeah, it's a really exciting thing to see.

Sister Jeanette  
Barbara, you should tell her about the first few swarms that we went out and tried to catch.

Sister Barbara  
That that's how I increased from five to 13. I went--What do you mean tried? We did! [laughter]

Sister Jeanette  
Well, it was an interesting venture.

Sister Barbara  
I increased from five to 13 hives that year because they went swarming. I'm in the Alameda Bee Club. So if a swarm shows up, they put up a notice. And if you're the first to respond, you get to go catch this swarm. And they are in the most interesting places. One was hanging in a tree over a gully that was about 30 feet down. So Sister Jeanette and I are trying to extract them from this tree. And we eventually did.

Sister Jeanette  
We took them out of a building that was being built, a brand-new building, and the construction manager, his men wouldn't go and work in the building because there were bees all over the place. So he asked us to come out. On that one we used a vacuum that did work quite well.

Sister Maxine  
Did you have the beekeeper outfits on?

Sister Barbara  
Yeah, yes. In spite of that, I often get stung. But I do use the full protective gear because you don't know, and you're invading their home. So I do it as gently as possible. And most of the time, in most of my hives, they don't even notice. I mean they're really good. But bees have personalities, the whole colony, and some are just really kind of feisty and others are just calm as cucumbers. They'll let me do whatever in their hive. So just for protection, I do use the at least the veil. I don't always wear gloves. I handle most of them with my bare hands. But I do wear the veil. I made the mistake once of, early on, thinking that I could go in there at night, and they'd be asleep. Well, they're not.

Sister Maxine  
Not so much.

Sister Jeanette  
They're all home at night. Did not like to be disturbed.

Sister Maxine  
What was your relationship like early on with the bees, compared to now that you both have some more experience and relationship to them? How has that relationship changed?

Sister Barbara  
Oh, I feel much more comfortable dealing with them. I think because I have a better understanding of what's going on with them. I have a better understanding of their cycles, of who's doing what in the hive. What to expect when I go into a hive, although I'm always surprised for some reason. I just am much more able to anticipate their needs than I was before. So that, and I just am always amazed at what complex little creatures they are. They have this tiny brain, and they can fly out for two miles to find food and come back to the exact hive, even though there's one right next door to them that looks somewhat similar. They have figured out "This is my home, and I'm going to come back here," and they come back. And if it's a good source of forage that they found, they do this dance that's called a waggle dance. And they do this dance to tell the other bees where the food is, where the flowers are, which direction, whether it's a good crop or not. How far. And the harder they waggle, the more excited they are, the better situation it is for more to follow them out to that patch of flowers. It's fascinating. I'll open a hive and there's one doing a little waggle dance. It's fun, and it's just amazing.

Sister Maxine  
And Jeanette, how has your relationship with bees changed over time?

Sister Jeanette  
Well, that's an interesting question. I used to be a lot more involved in them. But I got stung once, and I got a little bit of a swelling. Then I got stung again. And the swelling got a little bigger. And the third sting, I thought I had to go to the doctor. And I found out that bee stings and myself don't mix. So my relationship with the bees now is their end product. Honey. I take the frames that Barbara's extracted from the beehives, and I put them in the extractor and get the honey out and bottle the honey. So I don't get too close to the bees.

Sister Maxine  
How much honey in a given year do you get?

Sister Barbara  
Since my hives have been changing the end product has been changing also. So I think last year we had 600 jars for sale. And we're anticipating a little bit more this year, I hope. But it really depends on a lot of things. And one right now is the drought we're experiencing already in California. And I'm not sure how that's going to affect what's going on with the bees and the honey production.

Sister Maxine  
You mentioned earlier the different personalities that bees have. And the different roles too. There's a queen bee and of course people know queen bees and drones. But there's a lot of other jobs in a community of bees, just like in a community of humans--they have various other jobs. Can you describe what some of those other jobs are?

Sister Barbara  
Sure. A beehive is definitely a community. And all the bees have a job that contributes to the good of the colony. In fact, one bee cannot--even the queen cannot survive on her own. It takes the entire colony for that organism to survive and to multiply, which is the goal of all living things. But the queen's job, of course, is to lay the eggs and the drone's job--they're the males--is to fertilize. And then the third very important member of the hive are the workers. And the workers are all females. When they emerge as very young workers, they have the first job of feeding the older larvae. So that's all they get to do. And then few days later, they get to be housekeepers and clean up the hive. And they do a really good job of that. One's a mortician; if one of the bees die, they drag it out. They keep the hives pretty clean. And then after that they get to feed the young larvae, the brand-new babies. So they progress to that. They don't trust the brand new, newly hatched workers to feed the young. After that, they get to make wax and make the comb and the hive. And then they become guards to take care of the entrance of the hive so that there are no intruders. And then they finally, in the last few days, they get to go out and collect nectar and pollen to create honey. So everyone has a role and if you look into a hive, each bee is very intent on performing her role.

Sister Jeanette  
I remember one day watching the hive from the side. And this one bee, she had a dead bee. She pulled him out to the very edge of the platform and dropped it off. She went back in and a few seconds later, she had another body and she pulled it out, brought it to the edge and dropped it off. Her role was mortician, and I was just fascinated. That was that honeybee's job, and she was performing it very faithfully,

Sister Maxine  
That you can identify it and see them in action in their roles is interesting. For the bees is having the garden and the trees and everything so close--is that an essential part of how the bees thrive there?

Sister Barbara  
I think it helps. It definitely helps our garden also. It's a back-and-forth and the bees do very well here, I think because of the amount of beautiful flowers. We have a huge meadow as part of our renovation. You see them everywhere.

Sister Jeanette  
I think, too, the fact that our beehives are right in the middle of the garden and very close to the orchard. They don't have to fly a long ways away. It's right there. They go right outside their door, and there's food there for them. I think as a result, they do produce more honey.

Sister Maxine  
Are the bees also part of the process for education that you have there? I can imagine they would be fascinated to see the beehives there and the bees. Do you do education around that?

Sister Barbara  
We actually do. We've given a couple of Rotary talks on bees and what we're doing here at the motherhouse generally, and actually one's coming up on the bees specifically. And we will be doing a garden talk on the bees and pollinators in general and how they help the vegetables and plants and how necessary they are. I know Jeanette mentioned the people in China who are, with a paintbrush, trying to pollinate every single little flower on a tree. We need to protect our bees. A third of our food comes from bee-pollinated plants. And if you imagine a picnic without bees: you would have no watermelon, you'd have no corn--I mean, there's just a whole list of things that would be missing from that picnic. And we would definitely miss them if we did not have them around. And they are endangered. So we need to continue to watch out for them. But yes, everybody is fascinated with them. They want to know about the bees.

Sister Jeanette  
And it's been a very good education point about the pollutants we're putting into the soil, into our plants. The bees are a very good example of what it really affects. If you don't have bees, you're not going to have your watermelon, you're not going to have your corn--and you won't have the bees if we continue on the road we're going. There are ways to control pests that aren't toxic to the system.

Sister Maxine  
For your bees, you mentioned earlier you have to control mites and things like that. How do you know if your bees are healthy?

Sister Barbara  
I do--Jeanette will attest to this--I do very regular hive checks. And to do that, I go in and I test for mites, and I check for the brood pattern and the brood, which is the young eggs and larva, and capped brood, which is a pupa stage. So I regularly check on them to make sure everything's going well. And I checked yesterday and one, I can't find the queen. So that's going to be an issue. I either need to combine that with another hive or get another beekeeper to give me a queen, which is very possible. Some of our local beekeepers grow their own queens, which is another whole project that I could take on, but I think I'll refrain at this point. It's just very important to get in there and check the bees if they're not going to survive on their own. 30 years ago, you could just have a hive in your backyard and go collect the honey and things would be fine. That will not happen today. There're just too many things that are against the bees' survival for them to make it on their own.

Sister Maxine  
You mentioned that you're part of a local beekeeping association.

Sister Barbara  
Yes.

Sister Maxine  
What do you learn as part of that? And are there other similar associations that you're aware of around the country?

Sister Barbara  
I'm sure they are across the country. There are state, national, county, local, all kinds of bee associations. And it's really picked up. There's a real uptick in beekeeping since COVID. I guess people are home and they're thinking, "Oh, how can I be more self-sufficient?" This is a great hobby that people take on. It's difficult right now to find mentors, which is really important if you're starting to bee keep. And it's important that people really educate themselves from good sources, because there's a lot online that is not very accurate. So bee clubs are really, really great sources of information. At our bee meetings, we have all kinds of in-services. And actually, COVID's kind of helped because it's all Zoom. And so we get speakers from Australia and New Zealand and England and all over the world. And we don't have to fly them in. And just really fascinating.

Sister Jeanette  
One of the things I found fascinating, we got to go to the convention on bees a few years back. And one of their main areas that they presented, were from five different universities, all of which had departments that really studied the bee and the development of the bee, and how important it was and what they could do to help maintain it and support it. Because it's such a huge part of our food supply. They were very dynamic presentations. I was very impressed with them.

Sister Barbara  
It was encouraging to see how the beekeepers are trying to work with the farmers to reach the farmers' goal of huge crops and to reach the beekeepers' goal of not killing the bees with pesticides, etc. It's a delicate balance. And there's a lot to work out yet, but these universities are really delving into trying to figure out ways that both can profit from what needs to happen. And the bees have to live for the farmers to be successful, but there has to be some give and take to make that work.

Sister Maxine  
We're going to pause for just a brief break. This is In Good Faith, a program of A Nun's Life Ministry. We want to thank our sponsors and individual donors like you, whose support makes the In Good Faith program possible. Please visit anunslife.org to make a donation or to become a sponsor of the ministry. We'll be right back.

Welcome back. You are here with Sister Maxine at A Nun's Life Ministry, and my guests, Sister Barbara Hagel and Sister Jeanette deYoung, Dominican Sisters of Mission San Jose. You can hear previous episodes of In Good Faith on our website at anunslife.org. And you can find us wherever you listen to your podcasts. Sisters, you were talking before that bees aren't like the family pets. Bees can come and go as they want. You also talked about some of the things that you do there at the motherhouse campus in Fremont to help keep your bees healthy and happy. For people who are listening to this podcast who want to create a more bee-friendly space, whether it's in the backyard or in an apartment, what might they do as a couple of first steps to be a little bit more bee friendly.

Sister Barbara  
Two really important points. First is don't use pesticides that are toxic to insects. Roundup is hard on bees. What it does is it disorientates them totally so they can't find their way home. And they eventually die, if it doesn't outright kill them. The other is plant as many bee-friendly flowers as you can, and bee-friendly flowers are generally daisy-like flowers. So just go to your local garden store and pick out flowers that you like that I'm sure the bees will like them too. That would be a huge help because there's a lot of urban beekeepers and to find flowers in your backyard, their bees will be very happy.

Sister Maxine  

And Jeanette, for you in particular, because your relationship with bees is a little more difficult due to health issues, for people who really do want to be bee-friendly but are a little bit nervous because of getting stung, is there something you could recommend for them? A way to be with the bees?

Sister Jeanette  
Bees tend not to sting unless they feel endangered. Now, obviously, going into their home and pulling out the frames, sometimes they will object. But observing the bees, there's no danger to that. Working with the honey, providing the plants, being careful of the things that Barbara was just talking about, what are you using as a pest control? All those things, I think, help our bee population.

Sister Barbara  
It's important to know that bees are not out to get you. They don't want to sting you; they will die if they do. As soon as they sting you, they die. So if they can help it, they're not going to sting you, and they will definitely go about their business if you let them. If you interfere with that, then yes, they're going to defend their hive or they're going to defend their food or whatever else comes up. The other thing is, if you're in your garden, and you have flowered colored clothes on, they're going to think you're a flower. [laughter] So maybe dress appropriately for a bee.

Sister Jeanette    
The other thing, and I know that because I tend to water the flowers that are close to the beehives. What will happen, I'll be watering for a while, and all of a sudden, a bee comes and hits my head. It's a sign they're getting concerned about what you're doing. And sometimes, if they come and hit it a second time, I realize I need to leave because the next time they may sting me. But they give you a warning. They literally just fly right into and bump your head. That means, "Go away, you're too close."

Sister Maxine  
So it's good to pay attention to the messages that they're sending.

Sister Jeanette  
Mm-hmmm. Mmm-hmmm.

Sister Maxine  
The gardens and the hives, they're part of that larger Dominican effort to care for creation. Can you talk for a few minutes just about some of the other projects that are going on there in that category?

Sister Jeanette  
Well, one of the projects that I think is so very important is the land that we have out in the Santa Cruz Mountains, which is like 40 minutes from our motherhouse. And we got that land back in the 30s. It was like 175 acres at that point. And we got it because we had orphanages, and the state required that you have someplace to take them during the summer. So this beautiful land, where no one was around, was for sale, so we bought it very inexpensively. And for a number of years, it was a vacation spot for our children. But then foster parents came in and orphanages were no longer needed. So we had this beautiful land that had some cottages on it. And we didn't really use it for 10, 15 years. And then one of our sisters decided it would be a beautiful place to rebuild a little, so the sisters could use it for retreats and vacations. And that was our Sister Mary Lawrence. And since that time, which was the early 60s, we've had our Marywood property, and we used it for in-services, staff meetings, vacations, just enjoying the beauty of nature. But as time went on, it also became a bit of an expense. So we were trying to find some way to support it. And I think it's one of those blessings God puts in our pathway. The Land Trust of Santa Cruz County was also in the process of looking for property. And we found Marywood was the area where animals would go across the highways to get to other areas. And it was like a natural passageway for the animals to come through. But the freeway was a major hurdle for them. And many animals were killed. And it was also a safety issue for drivers. So it took about 10 years, but we got the land into the Santa Cruz Land Trust, which meant it cannot be developed. And we did have developers asking to buy the land to put beautiful homes on. But it cannot be developed no matter who owns it, for--they say--in perpetuity. And by putting the animal tunnel under Highway 17, it will help the animal passage and it will also help--they found isolating the animals with our multiple freeways around here was creating a genetic problem because there weren't enough varieties. So we're hoping by the end of 2021, we will have a wildlife passage under Highway 17, which is the main highway from Santa Cruz, the ocean, into San Jose and Oakland. I think it will be very helpful for the animals and the cars, and they have a beautiful land on either side of the freeway, acres and acres, to live.  

Sister Maxine  
That is a fabulous commitment, certainly to nature and to people's safety. But in that region, to preserve that land, that place of beauty, is a true gift for the generations.

Sister Jeanette  
It's a land, much of it covered with redwoods and oaks, and there's like five big meadows in the area. And it also has springs that are active all year long which feed Bean Creek, which is a creek that the Land Trust wants to develop more because our need for good clean water is becoming more and more of a problem. So they're trying to develop that whole area and the water supply and because Marywood has these natural springs, quite a few of them in there, it will be very helpful to that project.

Sister Maxine  
Can you talk a little bit about some of the other things that are going on? I mean, there's just so many wonderful things that you folks are doing out there. Can you share a couple more?

Sister Barbara  
Well, sure. We just finished a building project. We needed to rebuild some of the residences for the sisters and we decided to do it right. So we made the building LEED Platinum and in the whole project. It's an extensive solar array and a large meadow, which replaced an English lawn that we had out front. There's just an array of retention ponds that we put in to conserve our precious California water, which is becoming more and more precious, especially this year. So it's been a great project and it's led us to really appreciate what it means to build responsibly because it was really a process.

Sister Jeanette  
I think it was like 99% recycled material when we took the building down. They used everything.

Sister Maxine  
When you talked about a meadow replacing the English lawn. I would assume that the English lawn would have been like a highly landscaped, highly manicured, mowed, all of that.

Sister Barbara  
Watered and watered. And this meadow is all native plants.

Sister Jeanette  
Drought-resistant.

Sister Barbara  
Yes, drought-resistant, takes very little water. It’s beautiful. It was done by actually a famous landscape architect in this area. And it's really a lovely place to walk now and the bees like it to.

Sister Jeanette  
The bees and the birds, There's always birds out there.

Sister Maxine  
And I heard of something called a seed ball project. Can you tell me what that is?

Sister Jeanette  
Oh my. That that was in connection with someone, again, we almost accidentally met. He's involved with the St. Vincent DePaul Society. And he wanted a little space to plant fruit trees, so the produce they could give at their food banks and just they wanted things like apples and oranges and plums, something you could just hand out. So we did provide a space in he comes basically up and waters them. But then he said, "Now would you have any land that we could put our seed balls in?" We thought, "What are seed balls?" And he said, "We're in an experiment to plant a trillion trees throughout the world." With the climate crisis, they said one of the best ways to remove the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is to plant trees. So he's involved in this project. So we said, "Well, yes, we have this place in the Santa Cruz Mountains." He brought a group, actually a lot of family groups with parents and their children, out to, to Marywood and planted literally thousands of seed balls, which basically, it's about the size of a baseball, and it's got rich soil in it. And he put seeds inside of that. So they would have the beginnings of growth right there for them. And he did the research of the local trees, to put that type of tree in the area at Marywood. And they simply throw them out into large spaces. And we're waiting and hoping to see lots of trees grow from them.

Sister Barbara  
The upshot of it is, if it's successful, they could drop those from planes anywhere on the planet. They would obviously use local seeds and local soil. It's the method--they're trying to figure out if it works.

Sister Jeanette  
Places like the Amazon forest, where so much of it has been destroyed, or the areas in Australia where they've had so many fires. If they can get this project to work, it would be wonderful for those devastated areas.

Sister Maxine  
It's great that you folks can be a part of how they're testing this. That is so exciting to think about the impact that this could have in so many places around the world.

Sister Barbara  
Absolutely.

Sister Maxine  
As we get close to the end of our time together, I have a final question for you. Dominicans, as many people may know, are the Order of Preachers. And we talked a little bit earlier about education. But I'm wondering in what other ways is the Good News of the Gospel preached through your work in caring for creation?

Sister Barbara  
I'll refer back to the model of our honeybees, again. It's a great model for religious life. But really, for all of us on the planet. They're a community. Each bee depends on each other for life. Without the work of each member, the hive will perish. Can't we say that about us on this planet? They feed each other, they work together for the common good. And everybody's needs are met in the hive. I think what it tells me is, we are all connected, and we are all one. And the molecules that make up the bee are the very same ones that make up my own body. So we need the bees, and we're very dependent on them. As I said, you know, a third of our crop comes from them. It's an education that takes a different form. And education is essential to our teaching and to who we are as Dominicans. And it's just such a joy to pass that on and to help open people's eyes. And often they open my eyes to different ways of learning. The garden becomes a classroom in many, many ways.

Sister Jeanette  
I would like to add to that: we're in the Easter season, and the whole idea of life, death and resurrection. And I think when you go out into nature, you see that very, very clearly. You have the living plants, and they have a life cycle. And the seed goes into the ground, it goes into the darkness so that it can come back in a fuller life. And I think that is the life pattern. We all have our down moments or challenges. And I think it's the hope of the resurrection. Yes, it will be better. Yes, we will get through the pandemic. Yes, we can work together. Yes, we are interdependent. Nature in so many ways tries to tell us that. It tells us with the seasons of the year. It tells us with the life of a single flower. It's there for us to see and to learn. And, I think Barbara mentioned earlier, the first scripture was nature. The wonder of God is reflected in it so much.

Sister Maxine  
Well, Sister Barbara and Sister Jeanette, thank you so very much for this conversation today. I could talk to you about the gardens and the bees and all the wonderful things for such a long time. Thank you for sharing with me.

Sister Barbara  
Oh, you're welcome. Thank you for inviting us.

Sister Jeanette  
Thank you very much. It has been an enjoyable conversation.

Sister Maxine  
In Good Faith is a production of A Nun's Life Ministry, helping people discover and grow in their vocation by engaging questions about God, faith and religious life. This program is made possible through the grace of God and the support of the sponsors of A Nun's Life Ministry, and you, our listeners. Visit us at anunslife.org. God bless.