Liberal Arts and the Land | Thomas More College

Liberal Arts and the Land

Interviews with Sophomores Annika DeMaster and Damianos Soutsos

Senior Patrick Kuplack recently reached out to two Thomas More College sophomores, Annika DeMaster and Damianos Soutsos, to find out how their familiarity with the land is shaping both their time at the College and their future plans.  Both are active in the College’s Guild Program: Annika is a member of the St. Isidore Homesteading Guild and the St. John Ogilvie Folk Music Guild, while Damianos is a member of the Homesteading Guild and the St. Hubertus Outdoorsman Guild.

Annika DeMaster hails from New Tripoli, Pennsylvania, a rural community in Lehigh County. Her family owns and operates Willow Haven Farm, where they offer fresh vegetables, pastured meats, and other farm items. Annika’s love for the land, keen business sense, and desire to grow in wisdom and knowledge led her to establish a thriving flower farm, which provides financial support for her educational goals.

Why did you choose Thomas More College, and what are your favorite aspects of the College?

 I really love the community here, but the main reason I came was for the education. When I was homeschooled, I studied and grew to love the classical liberal arts. I was introduced to Aristotle and St. Thomas, but the more I learned, the more I realized all that I didn’t know! At Thomas More, I can learn under the guidance of faculty who know the material they are teaching, and study with other students who are pursuing the common goals of wisdom and virtue.

 My favorite course this semester is Humanities III with Dr. Patrick Powers. We’re covering the early Christian era, seeing how Christendom was built from Roman society and how Christendom changed the societies that came before. It’s beautiful to see what happens to culture when it’s influenced by the Church.

 How did growing up on a farm prepare you for life at Thomas More and influence your future plans?

 Being a student takes a great deal of effort and self-discipline, and it’s easy to become dissipated when there’s nothing grounding you. Growing up on a farm, I was trained to get up early, do my chores, feed the animals. If you don’t feed the animals, they die. And because there is so much that happens on the farm, the one thing that keeps the family together is routine. It is because of that routine and structure that I get my school work done and maintain a prayer life.

Right now I own a flower farm attached to my family’s sixty acres, and I plan on expanding that business. Before I came to Thomas More College, I presented my dad with the idea of financing my college education by growing flowers, and he challenged me to come up with a business plan. So I spent four months researching flowers and how to run a business. I was so excited to have this idea and this goal! I had fallen in love with Thomas More College and knew that was where I wanted to study. Before I started the farm, dad had laid out with me how much I needed to make for it to be worth my while. I had a very successful first year, and I just finished my second season.

 So far I have been running the flower farm in the summer months so that I can concentrate on being a student during the academic year. But eventually I won’t be a student, and now I have a door through which I can pursue related avenues.

 How have you been able to cultivate your knowledge of and interest in the land at Thomas More College?

I’m involved in both the Folk Music and Homesteading Guilds. I help prepare breakfast a few mornings a week and bake bread for the school.  My dad started baking sourdough fourteen years ago, and now he makes about a hundred loaves a week for customers. I kind of apprenticed to my dad while growing up and gained my experience making sourdough from him.

 I think the Homesteading Guild has been introducing important aspects of food and farming to the Thomas More community. I definitely want to be part of any steps that TMC makes in that direction. As Catholics, we ought to choose what is good. We are corporeal beings, and what we do to our bodies has an effect on our souls. If we have the opportunity to put better food on our tables, then we ought to take it.

Damianos Soutsos spent much of his childhood and young adult life on Notting Hill Farm, a 60-acre farm in Front Royal, Virginia with views of the Eastern range of the Blue Ridge Mountains.  The farm boasts excellent pasture land, and has offered grass-fed goat and lamb and pastured chicken.  Damianos made his decision to attend Thomas More College after participating in the week-long summer sailing program at the Wooden Boat School in Brooklin, Maine.

How did growing up close to the land help form you academically and spiritually?

 Having so much land has been such a blessing. Getting to spend so much time outside allowed me to have a very real childhood. Being around farm animals gives you a good grasp of the reality of life; and when you are working out in nature, directly with the land, it forms you. It comes down to Russell Kirk’s idea of the moral imagination: when you are in contact with the real and not cooped up in a house all day, your imagination is truly formed in the good.

We have thirty acres of woods and thirty acres of pasture where we run an intense hobby farm of goats, sheep, and chickens. At our peak we had thirty meat ewes and goats for both meat and milk.

My various jobs on the farm have included rotating the animals so they don’t overgraze the pastures; calling the vet if any animals get sick; and milking, among other things. We hunt on the wooded acres, but we also have to look out for invasive species, clear various parts of it, and generally be good stewards of the land.

In the spring and summer, my mom runs a small orchard and garden. We have apples, pears, peaches, blueberries, raspberries, and a little vegetable plot. I’ve come around to appreciating more the gardening aspect of farming: there’s something so amazing about putting a seed in the ground, watching it come up, and seeing it mature into a plant that’s producing fruit for you. It’s very rewarding.

 

Why did you choose Thomas More College and what do you appreciate most about the College?

 My father was classically educated, and he made sure that we, in turn, received a good education. That’s what first gave me a taste for this style of learning.  I was also impressed by the close community of teacher and student on display when I attended the summer sailing program in Brooklin, Maine. There were faculty as well as alumni counselors, and the general topics of conversation, the singing, and even the readings we discussed were extremely wholesome and memorable.

So I came here primarily for the academics, and I really like the faculty and what we study here.

The faculty practice what they preach: they confirm what they teach by the way they live their lives, and I find that admirable.

 My favorite course would have to be the Freshman Sacred Scripture sequence. Going through the Old Testament narrative is just incredible. We read and study the four Gospels, we know what’s in them, and we see how they tie in with the Old Testament. It’s nice to be able to blow up the stereotype of the Catholic who doesn’t read the Bible!

Also, the community life at Thomas More College is very real. I think the Natural History course is a great example of this emphasis on reality. We start with the natural world, and begin with basic observation: What do you see? What do you hear? As a student, you are able to understand later on how this ties in with logic, with the humanities, even with philosophy and theology.

I also value the opportunity to be part of the Homesteading Guild as well as the Outdoorsman Guild.

What would you like to do after graduating from Thomas More College?

When my dad bought our land he always said that it was for his children and his children’s children.

I would love to be a bee farmer. It’s right in between animal husbandry and crops in that there are live creatures but with a passive element. When I was little, my brother and dad went to a beekeeping class and I remembered thinking: “Nope, I don’t want to do that!” But then it grew on me. The bees died and my brother went to college, so it’s just waiting to be started up again.

 

For further reading:

4th annual Guild Night

Interview with the Student Directors of The Potting Shed

The Thomas More College of Liberal Arts
Six Manchester Street
Merrimack, NH 03054

Phone: (603) 880-8308
Fax: (603) 880-9280
Contact via email


Copyright © 2024 Thomas More College of Liberal Arts. All rights reserved.