Gifts from the Garden

Tina Lopez, one of the many talented creators/founders of Gifts from the Garden with Lt. Col. Jill Sizemore, another happy customer!

Photographer: Frank Starkey

By BARBARA STARKEY

After the renovation of the Padre’s Garden in about the year 2003, the yearly event in November was founded which is “Evening in the Garden”. An evening of candlelight, entertainment, food, wine and fellowship with guests gathering from up to 500 miles away and now foreign countries.

At this time a supporter of the Mission began a canopied-lighted gift event in the Garden which featured gifts from the Padre’s Garden.

Several women were gathered and put their cooking skills to work. Experiments with herbs and fruits from the garden were made and the outcome was jars and jars of unique products..

Jellies and jams were made by these women. The fruits were acquired from the Padre’s Garden of course.

Now, becoming excited and encouraged by their new-found skills, this tiny group of determined women started fashioning trinkets to sell in their delightful tent. The trinkets were in association with wine and the jellies.

The herbs, jellies and jams were canned in ‘wide-mouth half-pint’ glass jars. Then ‘tied-off’ with country style materials, a note was added to the ribbon as to the contents of the jars and a St. Anthony Medal from the Mission Gift Shop attached.

Mint from the Garden was hand picked, cleaned and dried. . Then the women put the leaves through a hand process of candying and canned them. This usually seemed to be the favorite product sold but also the most time-consuming to prepare.

The women dried the rosemary, mint and citrus rinds to make hand scrub, another favorite.

The group of dedicated,-determined ladies were fortunate to have Betty and Jim Barrington of the King City area join them. Betty is an award winning canner. She grew up with fruits and vegetables in her hands at the side of her Grandmother and has been canning ever since.’

The Padre’s Garden is still giving after all these years! The fruits in the garden are apples, apricots, plums, cherries, quince, tangerines, pears and lemons. The herbs line up as mint, rosemary and chamomile.

One of the ladies always prominent in the middle of the “Gifts from the Garden” is Tina Lopez of King City. She hastens to add:” Each of these harvests depends upon Mother Nature (and the squirrels and raccoons) of course, so we do not always have every item every year.”

I’ll tell you this; if it’s THERE the ladies in the tent at the Mission functions will have it canned and ready to buy! They are one determined bunch! God bless ‘em.

All monies go to the Restoration Funds of the San Antonio de Padua Mission, the greatest gift of all. To find out other ways you can help please visit Campaign Preserve Mission San Antonio

Sounds in the Rose Garden

photo by Frank Starkey

BY BARBARA STARKEY

You may be very confused by this…asking, since when do sounds come from a rose garden.
This particular garden is the Padre’s Rose Garden at the Mission San Antonio de Padua near Jolon, CA.

The sounds come at different times and therefore are different all the time. Usually there is the sound of solitude, reference, only the rustle of the trees, singing of just a few birds and maybe the very far off sound of the voice singing inside the church by a Padre. That is one of my favorite sounds.

On occasion a bus of school children will be roaming the Mission grounds and you hear the totally free laughter of the children. Maybe they have spied one of the Mission cats and are thinking of catching it for a stroke of its coat.

Low quiet conversation between two or several adults is often heard. They have their tri-pods up in the garden trying to dodge the shadows that the fountain makes in order to get the most perfect photo that they possibly can of the huge Padre’s fountain built in the middle nineties by one of the Padres.

Low quiet conversation is heard when several people are standing under the plum tree in the south east corner of the garden. This is the location of Gigi’s grave. She was placed there in 1967, always to be in her beloved rose garden with its fragrant space about her.

Usually it is so quiet that one can almost hear the silent prayers being said by others around.

Once a year, around the first of November, sounds are heard for just one evening in the garden that are unusual sounds to the territory. This is the wonderful event of the Evening in the Garden. If candlelight could make a sound, it would drown out the other wonderful sounds that evening as hundreds of candles light the majestic garden

The garden is dressed that evening by many, many loving volunteers.. It is an evening of friendship, laughter, music and gathering.

Birds in song, just for this one evening, give over their singing to violins, harps, mandolin, guitars, accordions, voices, and the organ music by world renowned Ray Reussner on the organ in the chapel.
The music could also have been by the world famous Ciaramella Ensemble.

The sound of roaming and delight can be heard on this evening in November.

Your imagination could take you back over 240 years ago if you come to the Padre’s Garden and experience your own quiet time or offer to volunteer in the many avenues available there. Help is always needed and welcomed. Call 831-385-4478 and ask “what can I do?” for over-all volunteer projects. From the rose pruning team call 805-712-0203 You’ll be blessed.