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Annual Beltie Magazines
The Belted Galloway Society has produced full-color, 36- to 44-page magazines annually since 2004. An extracts from one of the publications is accessible below. Obtain copies of the most recent printed edition by sending a request with your snail mail address to the Executive Director at Email: executivedirector@beltie.org.
Abbey of Regina Laudis
If we forget about allusions to Oreo cookies and instead consider the
nun's habit, it will make perfect sense tha
t
the Abbey of Regina Laudis in Bethlehem, Connecticut would maintain not
one, but two black-and-white cattle herds. The industrious community has
for many years produced dairy products with their herd of Dutch Belteds,
and branched into beef production with a herd of Belted Galloways.
Sister Augusta Collins, O.S.B., explains: "We are a contemplative community of Benedictine nuns. Our main work as Benedictine women is the Divine Office, which means we chant the psalms and associated antiphons 7 times during the day to emphasize the sacredness of each part of the day and night as set forth by the Rule of St. Benedict, and to pray for our world, our Church, our communities, and the needs of all those pilgrims and guests who come to us.
"Our
prayer life is balanced by our work life, with different persons in the
community responsible for each area of that work. Although we are not
totally self sufficient, we do try to provide as much as possible for
our community and guests.
"As Benedictine, one of our prime missions is hospitality so we have guest houses, each one cared for by a particular member of the community. Cheese is one of the products we make in our dairy, and of course Bethlehem Cheese is the most famous, pioneered by Mother Noella who did her Ph.D. work in microbiology.
"Our dairy is licensed by the state of Connecticut. We consume and sell raw milk and cheeses, and make yogurt, ice cream and butter. We are a small dairy operation by choice, milk by hand, and care for the animals and land ourselves, with the help of our guests and monastic interns. Mother Telchilde has a Ph.D. in reproductive physiology, and she is in charge of the dairy.
"Each year we cultivate our many pastures and hay fields and put up between 6000 and 7000 square bales to feed our dairy and beef herds, and our flock of Shetland sheep. In 1987 I began studies at the University of CT in agronomy, earning M.S. and Ph.D. degrees. So I am in charge of the beef herd and the pastures and hay fields, both because of my interest and the skills I have developed over the years. We offer others in the community and guests the chance to work in these fields with us to learn, and to awaken their own calls, either to this area or to another.
"Mother Debbora Joseph cares for the bees and honey production. She inherited the apiary from Mother Agnes who was sent to begin a foundation in Italy. Mother Debbora Joseph had learned from Mother Agnes, but also enlisted many professional masters to help deal with new challenges as they come along, and she in turn involves guests and other community members who may or may not take on a more continuous on-going role in the work.
"Each department works in much the same way. We have sewing, food preserving and daily meal preparation departments, including specialists in areas such as baking. Mother Jadwiga who cares for our sheep began because of her interest in wool, as she entered the community as a master weaver.
"We grow our own vegetables and fruit, each aspect of vegetables, tree fruits, small fruits and vines having a main person in charge, but each involving others within the community, especially during the periods of more intensive work."
Many
are familiar with the Franklin Mint collector's plate called "Holy
Cow," which was assumed to feature the Abbey. This may or may not
be the case, though Sister Augusta confirms that Dutch Belteds are trained
at the Abbey as oxen.
She relates, "Mother Telchilde was interested in oxen, having long cherished the idea of training animals to work in unison to help care for the land in the most primitive way. While attending a workshop on oxen handling at a meeting of the ALBC in 1990 she was learning to drive a team of Dutch Belted oxen when her picture was taken and subsequently appeared in the National Wildlife magazine.
"Soon after that the Abbey purchased a pair of Dutch Belted calves named Ben and Sam whom she trained as our first pair of oxen. The Abbey was gifted with 4 Dutch Belted heifers, and when the opportunity to reconsider the future of our dairy herd arose in 1998 it seemed a logical time to switch from the Holsteins we had raised for many years to the Dutch Belted breed, whose milk is renowned as particularly well suited for cheese making.
"No one has ever acknowledged that the image on the collector's plate was based on our oxen, but perhaps they received the idea from seeing that photo. No conscious connection was ever made directly to us, no permission to use the image was ever requested, and we have no idea how it was circulated.
"But
it is Mother Telchilde who has trained our oxen. One of the responsibilities
of our team of Dutch Belted oxen is to pull the wooden wagon which holds
the coffin made at the Abbey when a member of our community dies. We all
follow along with the funeral procession to our cemetery as we lay each
loved one to rest."
When did the Abbey's beef operation switch from Shorthorns to Belted Galloways? Sister Augusta says, "We had been raising beef cows since 1967. Mother Stephen was in charge of building and developing the herd which began as purebred Shorthorns but later was crossbred with Charolais and Simmental stock. I had been studying agronomy at the University of Connecticut, so was asked to take on the beef herd and hay fields when Mother Stephen became ill in 1999.
"We now had a mixed herd of Shorthorn and Shorthorn crosses, and were feeling the need to get back to a more unified genetic line. Our bull had grown old and we knew that the selection of our next bull would determine the genetic direction of the herd for years to come. We investigated all kinds of breeds, and in the process became interested in Galloway and Belted Galloway. They appealed to us as a smaller breed and therefore easier to handle, with the added characteristics of being good grazers that could exist primarily on grass and hay, and since they originated in Scotland, could withstand all kinds of weather conditions.
"At that moment long-time Beltie breeders Vance and Gladys Kincaid appeared on the scene and offered to help us develop a Belted Galloway herd. We had visited some Beltie herds in New England and liked what we saw, so in October 2000 Mother Telchilde and I hitched our livestock trailer to the pickup and headed out to the Kincaids' Rolling Acres Farm in Gobles, Michigan.
"Our
herd has been evolving slowly, as we have bred our purebred Beltie heifers
to our bull as well as some of our Shorthorn crosses, resulting in some
purebred calves and some Beltie crosses. Generally we have kept and registered
all of our purebred heifers, and raised the steers for meat. Currently
we have eight Beltie heifers and cows, two crossbred Beltie cows, one
Beltie heifer calf who will be registered, one Beltie bull calf, and several
steers. We are in search of a new bull, as our beloved Sir Regis developed
arthritis and had to be sacrificed this spring.
"We produce grassfed beef, keeping our herd on pasture during the entire growing season from mid-April through the end of November and sometimes into December. They receive only hay during the winter. We have been selling our beef in halves and have had no shortage of persons interested in purchasing beef as soon as it becomes available.
"This
system has worked out perfectly for us as we have a good relationship
with the local butchers and once the animal has been transported to slaughter,
it is up to the customers to negotiate with the butcher themselves and
pick up the meat directly. We do not have the freezer space to keep small
cuts here at the Abbey, and this has been an efficient way for us to share
high quality grassfed beef with our friends and neighbors, and many customers
who have heard about us through our Monastic Shop or from others who have
purchased grassfed Abbey beef.
"We keep detailed records of each animal we have sold or slaughtered and know both the standing and hanging weight of the carcass. We do not have the carcasses graded in the traditional sense, but we have had many satisfied customers who almost always return in subsequent years."
Members of the Abbey's community have diverse, interesting and challenging professional backgrounds. Mother Dolores, the Abbey's Prioress, was Dolores Hart in a prior life, an accomplished actress who appeared in 11 films, gave Elvis his first screen kiss, and was featured in a Broadway play before entering the Abbey in 1963. Mother Dolores has served as the Abbey's Dean of Education since 1973. She is the niece of Gladys Kincaid, who with husband Vance helped build the Abbey's Beltie herd with generous donations of a bull and five heifers.
Other backgrounds Sister Augusta mentions include: "Our founding Abbess, Mother Benedict Duss, was educated at the Sorbonne in Paris and was a medical surgeon before entering the Abbey of Jouarre in France in 1936. Subprioress Mother Lucille Matarese was a professional lawyer and a member of the Connecticut legislature before entering the Abbey in 1970.
"We have professional nurses, another former physician, a literary scholar, several accomplished artists, and 3 members of the community who recently finished Ph.D.'s from the University of Connecticut in relation to work on the land in the areas of animal science, plant science, agronomy, and microbiology. Everyone here has a professional formation which she entered with or which has been cultivated since becoming a member of the community.
"Others in the Beltie publications have commented that passers-by often stop their cars to gaze at the beautiful sight of a Belted Galloway herd quietly grazing. We have had similar experiences, as persons often stop to observe our Dutch Belted dairy herd grazing on one side of the Abbey's property, only to find another set of black and white belted animals -- slightly shorter, stockier, and more furry -- grazing on another. It is not lost on them, or on us, that the dramatic contrast of a white belt across a black body reflects our own black and white habits -- and we are very glad of the identification!"
Sister Augusta closes, "St. Benedict says in his Rule, "For then are they truly monks when they live by the work of their hands.' So for us working the land and raising animals have been both a matter of survival and a means of being in touch with God."
__________
To learn more about the
Abbey visit www.abbeyofreginalaudis.com.
