OttawaHerald.com -- Community News. Community Connections.

	Franklin County, Kansas, USA

Subscriber Services Home Delivery Gift Subscription Stop-Start Delivery Missing Paper Back Issues Newsstand Locations Shopper Locations

Advertising Services Manage Your Account Place a Classified Ad Place a Display Ad Advertise Online Business Finder Directory

Other Services Submit News Laminated Items Photos & Keepsakes Article Archives Contact Us History of the Herald Our Policies

Suggest a poll topic

2009-11-21

2009-11-18

2009-11-05

Agriculture

Lifestyles

Friday, August 14, 2009 9:19 PM

ASK A PROFESSIONAL: What’s the impact of eating local food?

By LINDA BROWN, Ask a Professional

Joan Vibert believes in a self-sustaining lifestyle.

Whether that involves growing her own food, servicing and repairing her own car or home repair, Vibert says basic life skills are essential as the economy grows weaker and prices continue to rise.

“I see the economic and social changes as a positive thing,” Vibert said. “It’s like a sifting out of the B.S. and the junk that just doesn’t matter. I think this is forcing us to get down to the important stuff — the stuff that really matters in life.”

Vibert and her husband, Jim, own Windwalker Farm, 1981 Indiana Road, Homewood, where they offer life skills workshops and a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) group.

Windwalker Farm is where we went for the fourth week of the Locavore Challenge.

Herald photographer Elliot Sutherland and his wife, Teresa, are members of the Windwalker Farm CSA and have used their harvest to round out their quest to eat at least one meal a day prepared only from locally grown and produced foods.

The Sutherlands and seven other families have helped plant and weed the CSA since spring and now are enjoying the harvest of their efforts.

Vibert said the CSA members purchase the organically home-grown fruits and vegetables at a non-organic price.

“Everyone gets an e-mail on Thursday letting them know what we’ll be harvesting on Friday,” she said. “That’s a little different than we’ve done it before, but it works better because they only come and get what they want and will use. I can’t bear the thought of our lovely vegetables becoming compost in the back of someone’s refrigerator because they don’t like it or know how to prepare it.”

Vibert has been growing her own food since 1994 and started her first CSA in 1995. She said it’s evolved into a social network that celebrates Mother Earth.

“It’s grown into a group of people who have become friends who love being together,” she said. “Some of our families have been with us so long their little ones are teenagers now.”

The Windwalker Farm CSA planted about 600 feet of potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, squash, carrots, lettuce, strawberries, chard and kale.

“Now we’re starting on the seedlings, which will be moved to the high tunnel for the winter. We’ll harvest out of that all winter,” she said.

Vibert described the high tunnel as an unheated greenhouse, which sides are covered in plastic instead of glass. The sun heats the structure, and it can be as warm as 80 degrees inside on a 20 degree day.

Life skill workshops offered by Vibert and her husband include woodworking and carpentry, cooking, food preservation, basic plumbing and electrical, car repair and maintenance, knitting, sewing, alternative medicine and how to transition to a less-consumptive life style.

“More communal work and living is in our future,” Vibert predicted. “I don’t like the idea of not being able to run my tractor because I can’t afford the fuel. However, I have learned just how much work six people with hoes can accomplish in a very short amount of time.

“Being able to be self-sustaining is a good feeling. An even better feeling is being able to share it and pass it along.”

A video tour of Windwalker Farm and the CSA will be available Monday on The Ottawa Herald’s Web site, www.ottawaherald.com. Click on News and then on Local Video. A link also will be available on the Windwalker Farm Web site, www.windwalkerfarm.com and the Locavore Challenge page on Facebook.com.

Linda Brown is marketing director for The Ottawa Herald. E-mail her at lbrown@ottawaherald.com.

E-mail this story to a friend | Print this article |
Enjoy the convenience of home delivery of The Ottawa Herald.

ASK A PROFESSIONAL: What’s the impact of eating local food?

By LINDA BROWN, Ask a Professional

E-mail this story to a friend | Print this article | Enjoy the convenience of home delivery of The Ottawa Herald.

E-mail this story to a friend | Print this article |
Enjoy the convenience of home delivery of The Ottawa Herald.