President's Note

Happy New Year!  We are off to a great start despite the weather but it is winter!  The endless freeze-thaw cycles have made it more difficult to navigate with snow-ice accumulations in sidewalks and roads.  While the City does a wonderful job in maintaining our streets, we may want to contribute our parts in ensuring the streets (and sidewalks) in our neighborhood are safe for all users including pets.  Sand is available for residents (free) right in our neighborhood - Monona Golf Course.  Don't forget to bring a pail and shovel!
We've had our first meeting of the year last week that we rescheduled due to the inclement weather.  There were items that we didn't get to due to the time constraint and will be included in next month's meeting agenda.  If you have not been to any of the past meetings, we highly encourage you to come and check us out!  I'll highlight a few notable topics here:

• Event survey: Thank you to those who completed the event survey.  There were 24 respondents in total.  The comments were positive and suggested we repeat most/all of the events this year.  Additional suggestions include family friendly activities such as run or bike group, meet and great for new/young parents/families, events at the park (e.g. kick ball, basketball, relay races), organized assistance for snow removal/shoveling, and historical presentation or information on the neighborhood.  I think that these are all great ideas and we would love to be able to incorporate into our events calendar - one thing we could use is for more volunteers.  Please consider helping to plan one or more events this year.  
• Lake Edge CSA - check out this month's article about how produce are prepared and subsequent delivered to us in boxes.         
• E Coldspring - The City of Monona has requested allowing parking on the North-end of the street between Monona Drive and Jerome Street.  No decision has been made at this time and will be further discussed at next month's meeting.  If you have questions or concerns, please attend the meeting or email concerns and/or questions to lakeedgeNA@gmail.com. 
• Renew LENA membership or Join Us at the Pizza Party - Refer to event flyer below.  Free pizzas for members.  Feel free to bring dessert to share.  Drinks available for purchase at the bar.   

Typical Workday in a CSA Farm

The tasks vary from farm to farm however these are our daily and weekly tasks at our farm, My Fine Homestead.

• Bill waters the vegetables started in flats daily. 
• We feed and water the chickens, turkeys, ducks, rabbits, goats, horses, and cows – our menagerie - each day. I milk the cow in the mornings, and someone (often Aidan) gets eggs. Sometimes these chores spill over into the afternoon even though we try to have them done by mid-morning.

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Frank Allis Weekend Backpack Food Program Features "First Fridays"

Last month a new neighborhood effort was announced to support our most vulnerable students and families at Frank Allis Elementary School.  READ MORE...

Greetings from Your County Supervisors