NOLS in our Community

Both Tim Wilson and Missy White, former and current NOLS employees, are working to provide the Lander community with fresh and local produce/food products, through their CSA’s. When one goes to the grocery store, as we all do, to get their weekly means of sustenance, how many of us think about the distance the food has traveled and what kind of carbon footprint it has left? To buy local is to support those small time producers in one’s community and to put money back into the place in which you reside.
Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is gaining popularity as a way for consumers to buy local, seasonal food directly from a farmer. Farmers offer ‘shares’ to the public. The ‘share’ consists of a weekly box of produce or other raw farm products. Interested consumers purchase these shares and then are provided, by the farmer, with their box, each week of the growing season.
Tim’s CSA, Fat Flamingo Farm, offers 15+ shares a season. They grow anything from potatoes to melons. Along with the produce the farm also raises cows, sheep, chickens, and a few turkeys. (Pictured to the right is Fat Flamingo’s usage of some old, broken NOLS tent poles.) Missy sticks with just the produce. The amount she can produce, in the limited space of her in town backyard, is absolutely amazing. Her spatial utilization is key. She not only uses her two beds but also has begun to try a hanging tomato plant growing method under a trellis system on her patio.