I have been in this green space for 23 years. From the very beginning I knew it was special. My feet had never felt so grounded as when I stepped onto this 16-acre plot with its mostly scraggy and shaggy fields where weeds and thorns had overtaken pasture grass, and its mostly stagnant pond in the back corner that was losing its battle against erosion. It still welcomed deer and hosted some water fowl, but it hosted even more broken, rusted bones of farm equipment. This space needed new...