At the Small Family Home in Ledići, we have continued these days with preparing the land and creating a space that will, during the summer, become a place for learning, work, and children’s time in nature. After planting potatoes in recent days, the first rows of lettuce, spinach, chard, carrots, parsley, radishes, and other vegetables have now also been sown — crops that will, God willing, grow together with the children who come here throughout the summer.

But before the planting could begin, a much more difficult task was waiting for us.

The land we are cultivating had been neglected for years and was full of large stones hidden beneath the soil. In order to prepare the ground for planting at all, we had to remove the stones one by one by hand. Some of them were buried deep in the ground and weighed around 30 kilograms.

The work progressed slowly and required a great deal of effort, but also carried the feeling that every stone removed represented a new opportunity for this place to one day become a true little garden for the children staying in Ledići.

Despite the difficult terrain, fresh mountain mornings, and soil that still hides many stones, the first garden beds have now been prepared and planted. To some, these may simply look like rows of vegetables. To us, they represent much more.

These are the first steps toward helping children learn how food is grown, how land is cultivated, how much effort is needed for a single harvest, and how shared work can bring people together. We hope that one day the children here will plant, water, harvest, and spend time far away from screens — surrounded by nature, animals, and a sense of belonging.

Ledići may be a small mountain village, but it is precisely here that some of life’s most important lessons are born — patience, hard work, responsibility, and togetherness.