What; Benefit Opportunity for Mustard Seed Farm

Where; Worldly Goods, downtown Ames store specializing in beautifully made, fairly traded items from around the world. See http://www.worldlygoods.org/

When; Wed. Nov 19th from 4-7 p.m.

Why; Share of all proceed from sales during this time to benefit Mustard Seed Farm

Greetings Folks!

Mustard Seed Community Farm has 3 big things to relay today; 1) volunteer workday this Sat. Oct. 25, 2) leaf donation request and 3) 1st winter potluck announcement. Hope you can help or join us for one or all of these activities. Thanks, Nate (515-231-2002).

1) Volunteer Day, Sat. Oct. 25th from 9 am to 5 pm.
-Its garlic planting time and we have a huge need for workers to help make it happen. We have a lot of garlic to plant and mulch - its an exciting event. Come for all day, or morning/afternoon. We'll take a break for lunch around 11:30.

CIDER PRESSING -

Saturday Oct. 4th from 1-5. Bring as many apples as you want or can and we'll have a big pressing with our big old fashioned hand turned press and make cider you can bring home.

More details in coming weeks, but start locating some apple sources (lots of people have trees they would be happy to share if you pick em). THIS WON"T HAPPEN UNLESS YOU BRING YOUR OWN APPLES!!!!!!! We only have a few at the farm, and having to outsource our own.

Thanks, sure hope to see you, its been beautiful at the farm!

Hello friends!

Its fall for sure now! We've had a frost and plants are either recovering or toast. We've had a lot of rain for this time of of year, but now are starting to finally dry out which is necessary for many activities on the farm. Could still use some warm weather. A lot of tomatoes out there still!

WORKDAYS -

We could definitely absolutely still need some help from volunteers to get us through the fall season as we our interns have left and many of our student farmers are back in school.

Saturday, 9/27, from 1-5

Click read more!

Sep 2 at 1:54 PM

Hey everyone,

Hope you can make it to our last summer potluck and discussion on Friday with Rebekka Brown leading about coexistence of GMO and organic agriculture. It'll be a good one! 6:00 potluck and 7:00 discussion. Rain or shine.

Also, please come work with us from 2-5 p.m. on Saturday (9/6) afternoon!

Would love to see you there.

-Nate 515 231 2002

Mustard Seed Community Farm

366 W Ave

Ames IA 50014

Northeast Boone County, 7 miles west of Story City

2 miles west of R38 on E18, south on W 1/2 mile

Resilient Seed Saving: Re-storing Our Skills and Our Caches
Saturday August 16, 1 to 4 PM

Mustard Seed Community Farm
366 W Ave
Ames, IA 50014
515-460-1467

Important note on the location;

Do not trust navigator and internet map sources - it keeps sending folks to the wrong place. mMake sure you are
headed northwest of Ames (about 10 miles north of ames), west of Story City, just south of E-18. Also
note that W Ave does not go through north of Hwy 30 - take Hwy 17 or
R38 north from 30.

([of most of our summer interns' stay-ed.])

HELLO! This is Mary Zheng, intern living in the RV for the summer.

If you’ve ever sat in a classroom, you know the drill: in the beginning, everyone sits on a first come, first serve basis, but by the third weed, the kid who wears his puke green high school graduation shirt 75% of the week sits to your right and the girl who starts every question with ‘I’ve got a question—actually, I’ve got three…’ sits to your left. This is carved in stone. But there’s always that one fateful day when you enter the classroom to see someone else in your seat. You begrudgingly sit in the closest empty seat, but you end up taking someone else’s seat, and now the whole feng shui of the room is ruined.

Not so at Mustard Seed. I’ve been here for ten weeks, and nobody has once taken my seat at the dinner table. It’s because nobody has a specific spot at the table—how could you when there’s a different number of people eating at each meal? There’s a constant flow of people coming and going, whether they be workshop attendees, workday volunteers, mysterious WOOFERs, or Franciscan nuns (but to be fair, that was only once).

Although our lack of permanent seating arrangements is in my opinion the mark of our strong community, somehow I feel like I’ve been a part of a (slightly dysfunctional but ever so loving) family. People talk about how Mustard Seed is a community farm—and it is—but the truth is, when you hang around here long enough, you become part of the family.

This summer, the family has consisted of Claire Boeke, who hates mushrooms and isn’t too good at this whole love thing; Clare Roberts, who requires seven sleep cycles to be well-rested and seven sneezes before she’s done; Abby Jeske, savior of all animals and master of the poop bucket; Elena Ingram, who can’t yell but also can’t whisper and, as a resident of Ames, is our reliable connection to civilization, and myself. These ladies have grown from strangers into my sisters, with Nate and Alice protecting us from pesticide air-raids, teaching us their scrupulous ways of weeding, and providing us with lots of work, Swiss chard, and love.

Maybe it’s because I’ve grown up as an only child, but this summer has been absolutely splendid, and it’s all because I’ve felt like I’ve been a part of a large family. I don’t know if it’s waking each other up on harvest mornings (because one of us inevitably presses snooze a one too many times), rejoicing together at the amount of sugar brought to us in dessert form at every potluck (bless your souls), or later regretting eating four servings of those brownies, but whatever it is about this farm has turned us into something much closer than mere co-workers.

Now that I’m at the end of my stay here, I’d love to say that nobody could take my place (at the table), but the nature of Mustard Seed has made it so that I never even had my own place. I was and always will be a part of something much larger than myself—something that I will both carry and share with others through my thoughts and actions, whether they be weeding the side of W Ave so the milkweeds grow taller, donating portions of my future garden to friends or strangers in need, or just sharing consolations and desolations with those around my table. I’ll see you again, Mustard Seed, and when I do, I’ll kick every one’s @$$ at futbol. GOL!!!!!!

Invitation for a permaculture design class at the Mustard Seed Community Farm, taught by Adam Campbell from the Peace and Permaculture University in northeast Missouri.

Permaculture is the practice of designing farming and living space to be in harmony with and benefit from the natural environment, of examining and using multiple functions of our plants, lands, and ecosystems, and caring for the earth and people in a rejuvenating human system.

The schedule for the class:
Saturday, July 26th, 9 to 5 PM
Sunday, July 27th: 11 to 4 PM

The class will be held at Mustard Seed Community Farm: 366 W Ave, Ames, Iowa, 50014. Mustard Seed is 10 miles north and 6 miles west of the town of Ames.

Also, there will be optional activities are available Saturday night and Sunday morning if you're camping or want to stay later or come earlier.

The class is offered following the gift economy: they are our gift
to the community and we hope that you will think they are so worthwhile
that you might give a gift to us as you are able - to help cover the costs
of the class, or to offer your time to the farm, or perhaps you will be
inspired by this class to go out and give a gift to the greater world.

Register for the class by contacting Alice McGary at (515) 460-1467 or mustardseedbee@gmail.com.
Camping is available on the farm.

Unfortunately, because of the coming thunderstorms, our seed saving workshop Sunday (today) will be cancelled. We will still be having the seed-saving workshop, on either August 16th or 17th, from 1 to 4 PM. We'll let you know further details soon.

Apologies!

Nicholas

June 28, 8 to 4 PM
Weed harvesting, green bean planting, and weeding

July 5, 1 to 5 PM
Garlic harvesting, processing, and eating, and probably some weeding.

July 19: 1 to 5 PM
Weeding, green potato digging, and raspberry eating.

August 9: 8 AM to noon
Weeding, cover crop planting, melon eating

Sep 20, 9 AM to noon
Sweet Potato Harvesting. We'll be harvesting most of our sweet potatoes. Workers can expect to take some freshly dug sweet potatoes home and learn a lot about digging!

October 4: 9 to 5