We are losing our humanity. I am searching for an antidote.

The challenge of our time is to recover what we have lost: in nature, and in our communities.

Nearly three years ago, my wife and I bought a dilapidated farmhouse on a piece of land in Rappahannock County, Virginia, that had been overtaken by weeds and vines. My then-editor, David Shipley, proposed what I thought at the time to be a wacky assignment: I would write about my attempts to restore the land. I went along with it, mostly to humor the boss.

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