| This inaugural newsletter of Holy Sanctuary Acres is about beginnings. The beginnings of a little farm in its infancy at the very early stages of what we envision. For a while now, we have fostered the desire to grow food, raise animals, and start a business and so we are doing it. However, that says very little about the value of good healthy food for our family, other families and our community. In the last few years, we have come to value not only clean food but more importantly the processes and systems leveraged to produce food in a sustainable way. Consequently, we embarked on an adventure that goes a little beyond the familiar backyard chickens and summer gardens. We have made it out to the country for more chickens, garden and what else will feed our family and whoever will come along for the ride. This newsletter will document more of this adventure on a monthly basis. Today, we focus on beginnings. Holy Sanctuary Acres is our sacred space for growing food for the body that aims at the soul. If that’s a mouthful, then it is simply our place to grow food for the heart.Beginnings are usually not as easy as you would think. You close your eyes, you take a breadth, you see a world in which you want to live. You open your eyes and say to yourself, “let’s go make that world happen”. Almost immediately, you meet with resistance: that which goes in opposition to the direction you are going. Resistance is always there even in your head sometimes. You must protect your heart or you won’t see that world anymore when you close your eyes. Resistance is there from the very beginning. It is necessary. It may or may not come colored with opportunity but it is surely an invitation to engage that world you see with the world as is. If you are wondering what a beginning farm looks like, it is not unlike a blank sheet of paper with of course, some resistance. At some point you must overcome the resistance and start scribbling, painting or drawing awayon that blank sheet. Among our resistance on the farm are: land whose soil is depleted of nutrients from past heavy commercial agriculture and unable to grow anything vital to support livestock without help; and a lack of appropriate infrastructure for said livestock. However, we have managed some scribbling already by graduating a few pigs on the farm and it’s a joy around the table when we sit together to enjoy the fruits of our labor. Also, a member of the family is honing her skills with a small flock of egg-laying chickens which is a blessing both to our family and to a few of our neighbors. The rest of us are busy about infrastructure and planning for what is to come and there is more to come. Stay tuned. There won’t be a dull moment. Subscribe if you have not already.
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