Strangers and Guest Farm

 

Along the Platte River in Ringgold County is Maloy, Iowa, population 24. It's here that for the past few decades Brian and Betsy have made their home on the Strangers and Guests Catholic Worker farm.

At 9 each morning the day begins with reading the day’s scriptures, taking time to reflect on their meanings and implications for our lives. During my visit they were also finishing up a one paragraph at a time reading of Pope Francis’s recent encyclical Fratelli Tutti (On Fraternity and Social Friendship).

After prayer a list is made of the day’s tasks. There are always plants to be watered, animals to be fed, weeds to be pulled, eggs to be gathered, but while I was visiting there were also onions to be harvested, garlic to be braided for storing, brussel sprout seeds to be planted, peaches to be picked, potatoes to be dug up.

Everyone loves the goats! Three adults and two kids currently make up their small herd. Usually, I was told, they’d have expected more babies. Its not too often that only one kid is born at a time so to have both mothers in the same year only birth one was unusual.

During my visit the kids were being separated from their mothers at night for the first time. It was a bit traumatic the first evening but each subsequent night the young ones were moved up to their own enclosure saw a routine being build. By separating the moms from the babies Brian or Betsy could then milk the mothers first thing in the morning for the the farm’s dairy needs and then return the young ones to their mothers for the rest of the day so that they can nurse during the daylight hours.  I was told that normally this process would have happened earlier in the kids’ lives, allowing them to get into the rhythm sooner, but was put off a couple weeks because of Brian’s recent travels to Germany to protest US nuclear weapons housed there.

At Strangers and Guests it seemed like a good portion of the goats’ milk was turned into yogurt (eaten with homemade granola each morning) or cheese. If you’ve ever been to a Catholic Worker gathering you’ve probably had some of their herb infused soft cheese, but they also make aged hard cheeses too. After removing the mold from the outside I got to sample some of their cheddar during my stay (nice and sharp), but I think my favorite may have been their feta.

Brian and Betsy have been around the movement for a long while. Brian lived with Dorothy for four years in the later 70s near the end of her life and Betsy had decided she was all in on the CW farm in Tivoli before it was shuttered. They both found themselves at the Davenport CW for a few years before making their way down to Maloy.

They've been staples of the town since having come there when it was thrice the size years ago. In their tenure they’ve not only worked to “eat what they grow and grow what they eat” but also ran a country store. Brian was even electing Mayor once causing a mass resignation of the city council who didn’t want to work with the wacky radical recently elected.

In addition to their food growing endeavors Brian stays busy working for the abolition of nuclear weapons all over the place, not least of all in his position at the Nevada Desert Experience. Betsy for her part is a talented  weaver. Her creations and the many tools of the trade were all over the farm house

Not every Catholic Worker is as big a CW nerd as I am. If you’re around long enough you’ll inevitably absorb some amount of it by osmosis but for plenty of folks reading theory or old CW articles isn’t their favorite activity. Brian and Betsy were a couple folks even more ready to talk CW than me! Spending time with folks so shaped and formed by the movement was a highlight of my summer travels.

Brian let me check out his advanced copy of this new book in Dorothy. It was an accessible intro for folks unfamiliar with her story.

These noodle beans were one of my favorite veggies of the summer.