Since the 1980's we have been growing vegetables, raising some rabbits and chickens, producing various foods such as charcutterie and gathering experience in urban homespeading. During the pandemic, we moved to our current 3 acre property which we have been transforming from a suburban yard covered by lawn into a small-scale food production dynamo.
We call the place a garden (Pricely Gardens) because although we do produce food and livestock for sale, the inspiration, scale, and mentality is oriented towards garden, rather than towards "farm" as it now exists in the the reality of food systems controlled primarily by corporate agribusiness. Beauty is as much a priority of what we are trying to achieve as is revenue. In addition to producing products for sale, we act as a showcase of urban homesteading practices, provide educational services, and attempt to help our neighbors transform this area from a food desert into a food oasis.
A beautiful word that is itself not stingy with syllables.
We must always start from this great, primordial truth:
that we did not exist and now we do. Therefore, being—living,
existing, moving—is participation in something else. How much
peace there is in being able to say with clarity... that everything
we do participates in something else! Here are the roots of
gratuitousness (gratuità): everything we do and everything
we are are given—we participate in something else. I believe
that there is nothing more evident than this: that in every
instant of our life we do not make ourselves.
-- Luigi Giussani
Our encounter with the universe (a gift) naturally evokes wonder (the human response). Wonder is the first step towards philosophy and science. Not only are we gratuitously presented with the natural beauty around us, but this beauty also gets us to thinking. When we begin gardening, we listen to experts, read books, and visit pertinent web pages--we start by attending to authoritative doctrine. When we actually do gardening, we qickly learn to observe what is in fact occuring, and we test what we have been told. We begin to discern and then analyze the myriad factors; soil, air, sunlight, rainfall, termerature, humidity, human and animal traffic, critter behaviour, "weed" growth patterns, and so on that factor together to make our plants and animals thrive or sicken.
Close observation of patterns, inspired by wonder and the need to know, is a critical element of the process of nurturing. We seek to coax the living things in a manner commensurate with their natures, rather than forcing them in a way that may not be.
The intellectual response of wonder at the beauty we are given also motivates us to collaborate and help to perfect the natural goodness of that which we encounter. At the core of the virtue of solidarity is the pursuit of justice and peace in human spheres of action. It has been said "If you want peace, work for justice." Solidarity involves recognising other people, our neighbors, and all those we encounter, as our brothers and sisters and actively working for their good. The concept can be extended analogously to all our fellow creatures in the biosphere.