Hi All! We start TOMORROW at 9am for the Natural Building Class! Feeling a little out of the loop and unprepared? No worries, you're still welcome to come and join us!

Where am I going?
Mustard Seed Community farm's address is at 366 W Ave, Ames, IA 50014. However, we're in Boone County. So check out this map (http://goo.gl/maps/2SCq6) to make sure you're headed to the right place, 10 miles north of Ames and 5 miles west. Sometimes GPS units steer people the wrong way.

What should I bring?

In this newsletter:

a farm update
Workdays
Potlucks

see more info in the post below

Here's a chicken coop we are building. So far, we've just got some adolescent chickens living in it, but they will likely make eggs at some point, and we'll try and use their digging activities to our advantage.

at 704 duff Ave, Ames, IA, 50010
at 6 pm

we'll be talking about property

you and anyone else can come

A couple weeks ago, we planted our potatoes, along with some other things. Here's a picture.

So the goose, or some other goose, is nesting again in the hollow of a tree in our grassland. We'll see if it's successful this year (last year we think an owl or something killed the young).

Farm Update
The farm is warmer, and I think we had our last really cold night last night, and we should be able to start planting things like peas and radishes outside without worrying about a really killing frost. Also, in our grassland, we've started to see the first shoots of cool-season grass coming up, which, as soon as it gets a little bigger, we'll burn in order to weaken those grasses, to give more space for the prairie species that hopefully have survived from when we planted them last year. We've also started planting some more fruit trees, have started some seedlings of individual prairie plants and flowers for pollinators along with some vegetable seedlings, and are working on cover crop plans and orders.

Potlucks
We have two more potlucks this winter, and then we'll be moving to the farm for our potlucks. We'll probably have a tentative schedule for the summer.

April 5 Oscar Romero: at 2923 Woodland St, Unit 1, Ames, IA, 50014
We'll watch some film clips from a movie and have a discussion about Oscar Romero, a bishop and human rights activist in El Salvador: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%93scar_Romero

May 3 Property: at 704 Duff Ave, Ames, IA 50010
As we're buying a farm, it seemed a good time to have a discussion about the nature of property and things associated with it, like theft, resources, work, money, economies, and the government!

Workdays
We've got a lot of work to do to get ready for the spring, so if you want to come help us, that'd be great! Here's some of our upcoming workdays.

Saturday, April 6th, from 1 to 4 PM
We'll be pruning our raspberries, removing cages from our trees, and planting some cool-season vegetables, and starting some warm-season seeds.

Saturday, April 13th, all day
9am-noon, a break for lunch, the 1pm-4pm, followed by a farm meeting.
We'll be planting cool-season crops: potatoes, onions, brassicas, peas, spinach
and many trees! Please come - we really need some help this day!

Saturday, May 18th, 9-noon, lunch break, then 1 to 5 PM
We'll be planting out tomatoes and most of the rest of our warm-season vegetables

Though its quite snowy, we're starting work on the farm. If you want to come help, we've posted some workdays on our farm calender: http://mustardseedfarm.org/?q=node/26

We'll be having another fundraiser, this one sponsored by Worldly Goods, a cool store selling various crafts from around the world at 223 Main Street, in Ames Iowa : http://www.worldlygoods.org/
It will be March 14, 5-9 PM. Come buy some cool stuff, and a portion of the purchase price will go to us! Also I think there will be treats made by our farm team there.