It may not look like much to most people, but discovering this lady bug on a loquat branch at the farm recently was just the boost I needed.

For more than a year, I have been consistently doing good work- quiet, thankless work- to turn a lawn into a farm. Seeing this lady bug (& later others) felt like a loud standing ovation.

When I began stewarding this land, it was in such imbalance that there was nothing but fire ants & mosquitoes representing the bug world. As I established the farm over the first 6 months, the fire ant & mosquito populations dwindled (though the mosquito population is still robust😖) & I began to note the appearance of other forms of life on the land: scarlet millipedes, Sri Lankan weevils, spiders, bees, wasps, beetles, moths, all kinds of butterflies, but never any lady bugs…until now🙌🏾!

A grass lawn is not a living, breathing ecosystem. It is a denuded, resource hungry pit. The return of each species of critter to the ecosystem that is the farm is an affirmative nod. Balance is being restored to the land through good, ecological stewardship. What better ‘thank you’ could there be?