We're having a cool spring this year and have delayed a lot of our planting to wait for the soil to warm up. So far, we've only planted a few trees, but in the next 12 days we're hoping to get a lot planted. If the weather cooperates and we have enough helpers, we'll be planting potatoes, onions, kale, peas, spinach, lettuce, rhubarb, and about 40 trees and shrubs!
We really need some help getting this work done. The next few days will be cold, rainy, and even snowy, and so we will need to wait for things to dry out a bit again, but then we can really get cracking.

Dear friends,
(sorry no cool pictures, the camera is broken)
In this email/blog:

- Potluck schedule for the rest of the winter (including Jan 4)
- Buying the farm info
- plea for help with funding our land purchase.
- a short Christmas wishlist of things you might be getting rid of anyway

Potluck Update:

(actually written by nicholas, though posted by alice)

Sorry about the double email, I've (Nicholas) been bad at communicating with my farm team members, as it is Christmas time. Anyway, Happy third day of solstice (if you live in the northern hemisphere, that means the days are now very slowly getting longer, and soon we'll plant some onions (but not as many as last year). So here are the next three potlucks (they may change slightly, as I can't quite remember one of the titles):

here's an abbreviated version of the long blog i just accidentally erased:
1. gratitude for all those who helped make a music festival in the rain an amazing success.
2. upcoming pot-lucks.
3. opportunities to work at mustard seed.

i just wrote a super long blog and then it all got erased with one little click!

this is alice, with only a few minutes to write - i'll write more about this soon. we just sent in some air and water samples from our farm to learn more about pesticide drift. this picture is from june - you can see our air sampler and the herbicide sprayer in action. we're doing a pretty cool data collection project with Pesticide Action Network and Practical Farmers of Iowa.

Farm Update
Potlucks
Workdays

this is an email that nicholas wrote, with edits and additions from alice.

Farm Update
The farm continues to exist. Though we've gotten a bit of rain, it is still pretty dry. (alice heard a rumor that iowa is officially in a drought - not sure if this is true, but it's really dry. )We've just started harvesting our green beans this morning and our peas have finished. Our garlic is drying and we've started harvesting onions and other things.

Potlucks

hi Everyone,

Today it is officially spring, though it has felt like summer for a week. what a strange year!

email summary (1. ag-arts event. 2. prairie burn. 3. carpooling to the farm. 4. rough farm schedule)

(sorry, i've lost the camera - hopefully there'll be some pictures soon!)

hi all,

This friday is our March potluck.6pm march 9 at Jennifer Garst and Steve Libby's house (708 brookridge in Ames - this is just north of 6th street by brookside park)