Thread by @aspiringpeasant

Best way I know to get people in the right mindset:

- backyard chickens
- start a garden

Makes you start to see the world as more integrated. This was my path.

Got chickens and a small garden on an aesthetic lark. Mostly an homage to Eleanor Roosevelt's wartime cause.

https://twitter.com/cognazor/status/1385398562448711683

But that larp quickly turned earnest when I found that my post-war mind was ACTUALLY PEACEFUL when I was checking on the ladies and inspecting tomatoes for horn worms.

I wanted to feel that way always, so I asked myself what that would take.

I turned our 1/8th acre in San Diego into a lush food forest with avocado and mango and passionfruit and grapes and cherimoya and stone fruit and banana and everything else that grows.

60+ fruit trees with an understory of herbs and flowers, patrolled by a dozen hens.

I covered the front of the house in passion fruit too, and put a veggie garden in the front yard.

And the beautiful neighborhood conversations that came from it were wonderful and uncountable.