It has been just over eleven months since we moved here in rural Williston, Fl from down South in Estero, and what a monumental restorative effort it has been. My mother named the 8.21 acre property on a sub-tropically wooded sand hill “Cactus Island”, as old time Florida settlers once called such highground areas “islands”. It is also a reference to the abundant yellow-flowering prickly pear cacti found throughout the property and to the enormous numbers of Florida-compatible cacti I’ve grown from seed in the ever-expanding nursery. We completely hand-renovated the house, built food garden enclosures, created permaculture mounds for orchards and restored the land by manually weeding it of…