Inspirations
Communities:
In learning about the communities below, I felt inspired to fuse elements of these three communities into something unique: An agriculturally-grounded life-sharing community rooted in the Catholic faith, with an option for members to live as laity or professed religious brothers or sisters. Watch the videos below to learn more about each of these inspirational communities.
- The various Camphill Village communities in the US
- Misericordia: Heart of Mercy Home in Chicago
- The Brothers and Sisters of Charity at Little Portion Hermitage and Monastery in Arkansas
Small Scale Regenerative Agriculture
I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to Jesse Frost, Jackson Rolett, and all the farmers, composters, and content producers of the No Till Growers Network. I have learned so much from their podcasts and videos over the past several years.
- In the first video below, Jesse explains what regenerative agriculture looks like on a small scale.
- Below that is another video from one of the pioneers of no till agriculture, Charles Dowding. Charles explains how he makes the compost that he uses at Homeacres, his ‘No Dig’ market garden in the UK. Compost is the primary material used to build soil structure, improve soil texture, and increase the diversity and density of soil microbiology in small scale, no till production agriculture.
- Last is an introductory video to silvopasture, a grazing system in which livestock are integrated into rows of tree crops, generating multiple yields for the farmer and a variety of benefits for the local ecosystem, the soil, the trees, and the animals.