If you want to contact the Abbey
to say how much you like the website
or
to make a donation
or
with general questions:
Saint Benedict Abbey
252 Still River Road
Post Office Box 67
Still River, MA
01467
978-456-3221
abbey@abbey.org
If you want to visit, contact Fr. James at
abbeyretreats@aol.com
If you want to become a monk
Contact Fr. Anthony at
abbeyvocation@aol.com
If you want to contact Abbot Xavier
to congratulate him
fatherxavierosb@yahoo.com
We began by carving out 500 foot roads in the wet fields. Otherwise the well drillers would never get in OR out.
LEFT: To build the roads, we first removed 2 feet of blue clay muck with a Komatsu PC300 (thank you Kevin Harrington and NES), then we laid down geo-textile fabric before we added the gravel base for the road.
RIGHT: Mark Saganich, in the gray sweatshirt, was invaluable running the excavator while our own Fr. Peter drove the dump truck.
LEFT: Marty Piermarini (pictured here with Fr. Peter) and Steve Boucher of Central Mass. Sand & Gravel, donated 1000's of yards of gravel for the Abbey roads.
RIGHT: If our beautiful triaxle Mack ran into trouble because of the muck and mire or from 8 to 10 trips a day, John Madigan would make it like new again!
It was still snowy and cold last March when the fleet of drill rigs along with their supply trucks showed up at the Abbey. A few times we had to plow snow off the roads so the trucks could get up and down the hill from the wells to the main road.
LEFT: At one well site, we had to build a "corduroy road" out of old railroad ties in order to support the heavy well drilling rig which had to be perfectly stable as the shaft of the well approached 600 feet.
RIGHT: We had to warn the well drillers not to allow their heavy rigs to stray off the road even the slightest or else they would sink in the mud and they would never see their trucks again!