Issue link: http://cp.revolio.com/i/1262303
Page 6 | Abby's Magazine - www.AbbysMag.com Amid all the conversa on regarding the COVID19 pandemic related to tes ng, trea ng and vaccines, there has been an outlier that has had "fringe" coverage at best. You see it's easy to iden fy the hotspots with the commonality of urban, metropolitan, overcrowded living/working environments. In contrast, the cold spots could just as easily be iden fied as rural, sparsely populated agrarian environments. One doctor described how some ci es, coun es, states and even small countries have been largely unaffected, due to those precise characteris cs and living condi ons. So while I'm not necessarily advoca ng fleeing the city and living in a barn, I am saying it's worthy of note. Our dear Abby Sayler, was a huge proponent of people being outside, in nature and yes digging in the dirt. She was an avid gardener and understood the health benefits for our immune system related to the good bacterial and minerals found in "ge ng dirty". Abby's farm was created with that precise thought, because while we live in a mostly urban se ng, we can find all those health benefits at our organic community farm. Having said that, we hope to be embarking soon on our next "big project"! Many of you a ended or heard about our recent workshop at the farm presented by Stephanie Montalvo, to develop a Food Forest at the farm. We are mee ng and working through the final stages of a collabora on we hope to have with The Plant More Project. The culture and missions of our organiza ons are not only compa ble but mutually beneficial. Mrs. Montalvo is well creden aled and considered an expert in this area and below she tells the story of what we are envisioning: Building a Food Forest By Stephanie Montalvo Do you know nature's li le secret? Mother Nature loves to create! She loves to shower us with delicious food, clean air, water, soil, and abundant health, and the big secret is she doesn't want us to work so hard to get it. It is a natural right to have nutri ous, abundant, delicious food. The only thing we need to do is to respect her power and innate intelligence and copy her systems the best we can. We have a responsibility to protect the systems that keep us alive and thriving. Right now, we see the effects our impact is having on the planet. Our current food produc on is in jeopardy because we are not respec ng the laws of nature. Conven onal farming prac ces destroy the vitamins and nutrients we need to thrive as well as harm the soil, water, air, and land they are grown on. The great news is we can make radical changes right now to sustain us and our ecosystems, and it can be fun! How? Let's build a forest. A food forest, to be exact. What is a food forest? A food forest is a form of agriculture that follows the laws of nature. It copies the incredible system Mother Nature uses to build a healthy ecosystem. An ecosystem filled with vital nutrients, vitamins, clean air, water, soil, and so many other things we don't even know about yet but are discovering every day. Imagine a lush landscape filled with trees dripping with sweetness. That is a food forest. A food forest challenges our current concep on of agriculture because it just can't be this simple. Or can it? We currently plant in monocultures that require tons of work to maintain because we aren't working with nature. It is a broken system that we can fix by listening to our Mama! A food forest is diverse, produc ve, healthy, and beau ful. We don't need pes cides, fer lizers, and chemicals because we are layering our soil and le ng the beneficial processes of nature do their work. We don't need to ll or spray weeds. We don't need the insane amount of water conven onal agriculture uses or the vast plots of land. When Mother Nature builds a forest, she starts by sending out By David Housefield Immune System: B a c k t o B a s i c s