Category: Community Spirit

14 Reasons to Love Dubois, Wyoming

Again and again, people come to this remote town not far from Yellowstone and fall in love. How does this happen?

DuboisWYValentineYou hear about it again and again:  Someone came to this remote town not far from Yellowstone and fell in love. How does this happen?

Let me count the ways. Those lucky folks who discover Dubois are:

1. Stunned by the scenery: A too well-kept secret. Granite peaks that rival the Grand Tetons for their splendor. The fascinating, slowly melting red desert. The quiet forests and mountain streams. The vistas never fail to astonish.

2. Seduced by the climate:  The weather is most often pleasant and dry. The sun shines most of the time. Days are generally mild in winter, and cool in summer.

Petro 93.  Fascinated by the history … and the prehistory. From the mysterious carvers of the petroglyphs to the courageous and resilient Mountain Men and homesteaders, the people of the past never fail to amaze.

4.  Charmed by the people of the present:  The welcoming instincts of Dubois’ townspeople and their impulse to help themselves and each other make it difficult to resist loving the whole community, once you get to know it.

5.  Awed by the animals:  The other beautiful residents of this valley appear unexpectedly, and leave you catching your breath in awe. You’d surely be poorer if you never saw an eagle fly–or watched an elk bound away, or glimpsed a mighty moose in the willows.

6.  Healed by the hikes (or the horseback rides):  Whatever the little misery that clouds your vision, it will vanish as soon as you can step outdoors, pause for a deep breath, and take the first few strides.

wintertrail.7.  Silenced by the snow: The noisy burdens and pressures of daily life melt away when you can get out into the soft, deep white of it, whether you’re marching on snowshoes, gliding on skis, or sailing along on your snowmobile. (It’s all good–and never too cold, as long as you stay out of the wind and wear enough layers. Don’t forget the sunglasses!)

8.  Romanced by the remoteness: It takes about an hour’s drive to find yourself in traffic or in a crowd. What does surround you? The beauty of nature, most of it accessible as public land. That said, there are plenty of good places to buy a meal or even an espresso.

9.  In love with the location:  Smack-dab in the middle of the great American West. It’s about an hour’s drive to Yellowstone in one direction and to a restored ghost town and gold mine in the other, stopping to visit Sacajawea’s grave on the reservation along the way. You’re a few days easy driving from Las Vegas, the Grand Canyon, Glacier National Park … I’ll stop there, for now.

1200px-US_map_-_geographic10.  Drawn to the artists:  You may not be skilled at capturing what you see on canvas (or film), but so many others are. Plenty of them have not resisted the lure of living here, and you have ample opportunities to admire their work on display at art or photography shows, or in local galleries.

11.  Overcome by events:  Did you think there would be nothing to do out here in the middle of so much wilderness? I find I actually welcome a quiet evening at home, after last night’s lecture on animal migrations, the jam session the night before, my neighbor’s dinner party followed by cards, and on and on. I must be sure to be rested up before the Soupenanny next weekend! I’m so sad I was closed out of that free course on early Native American art and elected to miss the hike about animal prints in the snow. Thank heaven it’s still midwinter, when not much is going on. So many choices, so little time!

12.  Beguiled by the benevolence:  There are at least 30 nonprofit organizations in a town that has not quite 1000 residents, as of the last census. Nearly every event is a benefit for one cause or another, and when we run into a true crisis — a catastrophic fire in the middle of the business district, the threatened cancellation of our ambulance service — the way Dubois pulls together to rise and recover is almost beyond descriptions.

DuboisQuiltShow080815_213.  Captivated by the creativity: Knitters and quilters. Guitarists and fiddlers. Woodcarvers and antler sculptors. Jewelry designers and master caterers. (So what is lacking here in Dubois? Walmart.)

14.  Finally, found by new friends:  I heard someone recently describe meeting people in this town as like opening a box of chocolates and finding that they’re all truffles. Among the good friends I have met here are a nuclear physicist, a retired cowboy, a Parisian photographer, a Swedish schoolteacher-turned-wrangler, a great hairdresser (“Excuse me, where do you get your hair cut? Oh, Wyoming. Where’s that?”), a computer wizard, several lawyers and a dentist, numerous artists (of course), and a microbiologist. My hiking buddy grew up in Singapore and Pakistan. Our newest neighbors have moved here from Baton Rouge.

So different, yet we all get along remarkably well. Why? We all share our love for this one remarkable place.

 

 

 

Midwinter News from the Dubois Home Front

Beyond visible plans for reviving main street, there’s so much else that’s new in town this New Year.

As we begin to pack for the great return trek westward, news from Dubois in the “bleak midwinter” is anything but bleak. Not only have we seen the plans for the revival of our main street, there’s plenty more that’s new about town.

I guess when winter sets in and short-term visitors are largely confined to the mountain passes (with their snowmobiles), Dubois can take a deep

DuboisRising
The motto on the town’s float in the last July 4 parade: Dubois rising. Everyone from town knew what that was about.

breath and get down to business in earnest.

This time last year, we heard the distressing news that the county was planning to exclude Dubois from ambulance service, having chosen to install a professional EMT operation that wasn’t breaking even. Dubois’ indomitable Mayor Twila Blakeman leaped into action. Within a few months, 18 residents had completed training and qualified as EMTs. (Note that! 18, in a population of only 1,000.) She had also found funding for air ambulance service when ground service isn’t feasible. Just try to kill this town off, literally or figuratively! The story isn’t over, but my bet is that the outlook is hopeful.

Back to 2016: I’ve been gone from town for only a few weeks now, and there’s plenty of news from friends:

Pizza’s back! After the closure of the main-street restaurant Paya, which served better pizza than any we can get in Brooklyn, I suffered pizza withdrawal all last summer. Paya has been reborn under different ownership as Hooper’s, I’m told, and the pizza there is also said to be great. (Rumor has it that a former Paya chef has been sighted at the brick oven lately.) Meanwhile Cobbler, the riverside restaurant just behind and across the parking lot from Hooper’s, will reopen under the same management as a bakery and deli-style sandwich shop. Great call: We’ve also been missing a good bakery for some time, and visitors will appreciate the made-to-order sandwich option.

Flume1
Remains of a flume used to float milled logs toward the river

Tie hack history brought to life? Former Mayor Bob Baker has been hatching plans to found a “living museum” devoted to the legendary lumbermen who worked in our mountains cutting and milling ties for the railroads, early in the last century. Although there are museums dedicated to the topic of lumbering in Arkansas, Iowa, Pennsylvania, and Texas, evidently none specifically honors the tie hacks who were so important to our nation’s history. At present, all Dubois can offer for that purpose is a stone obelisk on a hill above the highway west of town (yawn … ). It has taken me years to begin to appreciate this particular history, perhaps because it wasn’t presented vividly enough. I think this is a terrific idea, especially for the next generation, and I hope it succeeds.

Brighter future for the town website. Developers are about to begin testing an update to the town’s Internet face to the world, the website www.duboiswyoming.org. (Full disclosure: I have provided the text for the new pages.) As you see it today, the website has an old-fashioned, rustic look and feel, puts cowboys front and center, and begins its description with “In Dubois time seems to move at a slower pace.” I’m hoping the new version will gymgrab prospective visitors with breathtaking images and text that compels them to pack their bags and come see for themselves.

Way better than elliptical: My hiking buddy says she’s started a snowshoe club. What great news! This is the kind of venture that keeps me going to the gym every morning back in Brooklyn, where I listen to John Denver on my headphones, look at visions of the mountains in my head rather than the yobbos on the flat screen TVs, and try to focus on more important goals than optimizing my appearance.

©Lois Wingerson, 2016

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Dubois One Year After the Fire: Busy Re-storing

Last year this time, fire devastated downtown Dubois WY. Something beautiful is about to rise from the ashes.

DuboisFire
Thanks to Joe Brandl for picture.

Prepare yourself when you turn that corner, a friend warned me last January as we neared Dubois on our return from the holidays.

Her words didn’t do much to dampen the shock. On the main street, it looked as if someone had neglected to remove a ghastly and elaborate Halloween display. Beyond the safety barricades, you couldn’t miss the sagging and crumbling black beams, the broken and charred window frames.

As many across the nation heard on the news last December 31, a huge fire had broken out in the center of Dubois the previous evening. It burned on into the wee hours. While volunteers tried to battle the flames, water kept freezing inside the hoses.

“I am certain that this most remote and greatest little town in the lower 48 will turn this disaster into a new start of something even better,” I wrote on Facebook. “The community spirit there is beyond describing. Just watch what will rise from these ashes!”

DuboisMercantileSite1215
Photo: Karen McCullough

I’m no prophet. But I know our town.

All this year, the view out the front window of the Rustic Pine Tavern has looked all wrong, empty and gaping, as if the hardware store parking lot was trespassing southward. What’s going to materialize there? I wondered, and so did everyone else.

One day in the spring, I saw the property owner Jeff Sussman huddled in a corner at the Rustic with realtor Leon Sanderson. But we didn’t hear any public news, other than a promise that the site would be redeveloped.

As soon as humanly possible (given the time needed for insurance investigations, demolition, planning approval, construction contracts, and un-freezing of the ground), construction will commence on this:

DuboisDevelopment3.
Image: Wind River Land & Bldg. Co/Belkin Architects

Last summer, Mayor Twila Blakeman told me that Jeff had raised the issue of holding a town meeting about the project. She recalled telling him, “Everyone liked what you did with the rest of the buildings [in that block]. Just do what you think best.”

Jeff recalls the conversation differently. He says Twila told him to go the usual route, via the planning commission (which no doubt she also did, and he proceeded to do).

“No one in the town has been anything but positive,” he said. “Everyone wanted it to be sort of Western, but when you asked someone what do you mean: Western 1905? Western 1940? … We understood what we wanted to do.”

But this isn’t the Wild West. Anyone who says it’s wide open and you can do whatever you want to do, he hastened to add, is talking “nonsense.”

A Carl Hiaasen or God forbid Annie Proulx would have a high time with the Sussman character: A high-profile New York commercial real-estate developer who moved to Dubois to set up a cattle ranch and bought up the best property downtown. But I see him more in a Wallace Stegner novel: A man from the East captivated by and ultimately committed to the West.

Jeff and his wife, the painter Susan Sussman, found Dubois almost by accident. They were looking in Montana, but ended up dividing the Rocking Chair ranch property in Dubois with another couple who wanted only a small part of the land for a guest ranch.

Their part became the Diamond D Cattle company, which two years ago won the distinction “Landowners of the Year” from Wyoming Game & Fish for its innovative wildlife conservation efforts, largely implemented by manager Reg Phillips, in dealing with threats from wolves and bears.

“It was a great leap of faith, and we just fell in love with the place,” Jeff told me. “It was an amazing learning experience, and I’m glad we did it.” He said they were especially fortunate to have found Reg and Aline Phillips, who had been with the ranch before and made the learning experience “terrific”.

These are no absentee landlords. When they’re in town, they’re visibly in town, and they have plenty of friends. I first met Jeff when he and Susan sponsored an open bar at the Rustic on his birthday several years ago.

So what will become of the empty lot? It’s described as a mix of retail and offices. “It’s 3 buildings, but from its appearance, you’ll think 5,” Jeff said. “We used altered facades and materials. We didn’t want people to just think ‘mall’.”

DuboisDevelopment2
Image: Wind River Land & Bldg. Co. /Belkin Architects

Jeff foresees an array of craftspeople in his shops: Saddlemakers, jewelry designers, people who make buckles, hats, and boots. “If we can get known as a place where there are lots of craftsmen, that would be great,” he said.

Reg Phillips, who is managing the construction effort, is energized by the potential to attract office tenants who will capitalize on one of the town’s best assets: Its status as a poster child for excellent Internet access in a remote area.

The plans will be out to bid next month or February latest, and ground will be broken in the spring, as soon as Nature allows.

“I’m not going to wait for tenants,” Jeff told me yesterday. “We’re going to build.”

© Lois Wingerson, 2015

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The Fabulous Dubois Photo Contest

Now’s your chance to show that your images can rival mine.

photo
Can you do better? Of course!

Wouldn’t you agree that Dubois is one of the most photogenic places on earth?

I’ve been having great fun trying to prove this, here on Living Dubois. Now’s your chance to show that your images can rival mine.

(I know they can. I look at Facebook.)

Please submit your own great digital pictures of the town and its spectacular surroundings to be considered for the forthcoming upgrade of the town website, at www.duboiswyoming.org.

LazyL&BHorsesThe old website is good as far as it goes. But the subtitle (“Where real cowboys work and play”) doesn’t begin to say it all. As this blog is demonstrating, there’s far, far more to tell about Dubois (and to attract those important tourist visitors) than just its cowboy heritage.

Let’s help to portray the rest of our unique story.

Sponsored by funding from tourism taxes, and coordinated by the Dubois Chamber of Commerce and the Destination Dubois committee, the image-rich new website will feature attractions including our diverse outdoor recreation opportunities, the many local art and artisan galleries, the exhibitions and performances that we enjoy so much, and a great deal more.

SquareDance3Winning images will be published on the new site, and your image can be credited with your name if you’d like. If the pictures include identifiable individuals, the developers will need permission to use their images.

There’s no compensation for winning–other than the satisfaction of showing the best of Dubois to a worldwide audience, in all its visual glory.

Please submit high-resolution (300 dpi or better) images (or questions) by e-mail to destinationdubois@gmail.com.

Winning entries will be chosen by the website developers at Wyoming Inc.

I’ve already entered. Won’t you join me?

Sellouts Amid Vacancies: Autumn in Dubois

Leaves drop from aspens. Motels are vacant. Does Dubois go quiet? All is not as it may seem ….


DomekHere’s the center’s new director, Sara Domek, clearly delighted by the success of the event.

Dubois has one of the largest year-round populations of these rare sheep, she told me. The Bighorn Sheep Center, which supports research and education into the bighorn sheep, is one of the town’s main attractions for visitors.

Sara told me that events like this bring in about a fifth of the center’s funding. The rest comes from foundations.

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© Lois Wingerson 2015

Masks, Ghosts, and Spooky Things About Retirement

Feeling like a ghost of your former self, facing truly spooky choices in the shadow of mortality.

Halloween maskIs this a Halloween mask? An outer space creature? A new Sesame Street character?

Trick and treat.  It’s the bark on a section of a felled log where I rested during a recent hike.

Isn’t it beautiful? Looking at it reminded me of my own wrinkles (how much time I have spent pondering them!) and about the wonderfully wrinkled other faces I see on the aged ranchers in Dubois. Those wrinkles have great stories to tell!

The young, hip gentry back in that now-trendy city neighborhood in Brooklyn that I must visit now and again refer to Baby Boomer homeowners like us, who haven’t yet sold and moved out, as the “leftovers.” These new neighbors walk right past me on those familiar streets, as if we were both wearing masks. It makes me feel more like a ghost than a leftover, but perhaps appropriately so. The house I used to occupy began to feel haunted, by the high, noisy voices of our children who grew up there.

thicket Then I retired, intentionally making a ghost of my former self. I embarked on a journey into a spooky thicket that is treacherous and tangled, with truly endless commitments to adult children, sad and scary duties to aging parents, unforeseeable hazards and murky decisions.

One of them may be the choice of where to live out those perilous years in the shadow of your own mortality. That decision can be scary. It was for us.

A brief road trip to the Southwest has brought to mind some of the options we did not choose. For instance:

failed retirement villageThe planned retirement village, offering a quiet life in the exclusive company of other people with similar interests and lifestyles.

If you want, of course, you can guarantee that exclusion with gates and guards.

A friend at my mother’s retirement village — one of the oldest and best in the country, a nonprofit — calls it a “ghetto.” A very pleasant ghetto indeed, she says, but a self-imposed prison nonetheless.

We do have the feeling that by removing all challenges and inconveniences, this option has a way of hastening your trip into passivity.

Of course, as the sad picture above demonstrates, these communities may fail to evolve as planned.

RVParkThe opposite end of the spectrum, the RV nomad lifestyle, beckons with the pleasant thought of following the best weather everywhere and seeing new places at every turn.

We see these nomads passing through Dubois all the time, and sometimes host them at our local RV parks. Temporary communities do seem to form among the mobile homers who settle in the same seasonal location year after year, but this gypsy lifestyle would only suit me for a few weeks at a time.

We have neighbors who lived only in their large RV for nearly a decade. They finally sold it and settled in Dubois.

Nobody planned Dubois. It is what social planners have called a “naturally organizing retirement community,” where people of our age group gravitate and build the resources they need for themselves.

Dubois WYWe are indeed a community of like-minded people, but just about the only opinion that we feel the need to share is the value of the community itself. At home in Dubois, I’ve found, people don’t really care where you came from or what you used to do. (In fact, a newly published oral history of the town says that a century ago it was considered rude to ask.)

What matters is who you are now and what you contribute to the village.

Which is what it really is: a village, with children and noisy, irreverent teenagers, and young adults who may make bad choices, as well as many who grew old here and others who came here to grow old.

That’s enlivening, and hopeful, and not a bit scary.

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© Lois Wingerson 2015

Dubois WY Naked and Afraid? Nah. Under-Exposed and Apprehensive

Mostly Dubois WY rests in splendid isolation, 80 miles from anywhere. Once in a while it basks briefly, if uncomfortably, in the bright light of publicity.

Mostly, Dubois WY rests in its splendid isolation, 80 miles from anywhere else. But once in a while it basks briefly, and a bit uncomfortably, in the bright light of the national media.

Six years ago, Kevin Bacon starred in Taking Chance, a movie (not actually filmed here, curiously) that honored the town’s welcome home to the body of a son fallen in Iraq. Late last December, the fire that engulfed part of the historic main street, and the heroic response of volunteer firefighters, made a great story for the post-Christmas news slump on NBC.

Dubois WY Naked and Afraid
Joe Brandl shows off a shoe he made from bulrushes. They were great until they got wet.

And last night, one of our favorite local characters won his 50 minutes of fame on the Discovery Channel series “Naked and Afraid.” I went to a celebration at the Headwaters, with some 200 townsfolk, to watch the broadcast on a big screen and to celebrate as our local tanner and Boy Scout leader, Joe Brandl, described his 21-day adventure on a remote island in Namibia. He was surrounded by swamps, armed with nothing more than his tin cook-pot and knife, and assisted by a previously unknown female companion who had brought along a fire-starter.

We all knew right away that they wouldn’t need the fire-starter. Joe has published a multi-part series in the local weekly newspaper about how to survive in the wilderness, including advice on how to create a survival kit that would fit inside a Band-Aid tin. He also wrote about how he survived a winter breakdown miles into the middle of nowhere by using his underwear and gasoline from the tank to start a fire.

He compiled all this in the first place to educate his young Scouts, who spend lots of time out in the wilderness for their own amusement.

Long since, like many others here, Joe has learned to start fires the original way (as another castaway, Tom Hanks, showed us in a different movie), by spinning a stick rammed into some fragile kindling.

Banks
Steve Banks in mountain man regalia.

Joe said he was fascinated by mountain men from an early age. “I tried not to just read it, but to live it,” he told us.

The guy operating the sound system last night lives by exactly the same motto. A retired telecommunications engineer and amateur local historian, Steve Banks has not only studied the journals of mountain men like John Colter, he has made a pastime of walking every step they walked and seeing the very vistas they described. Banks knows the trails of the Yellowstone Basin better than I know the back of my own hand.

Probably nobody in the room would have doubted that Joe Brandl would make it through his 21 days in isolation not only unscathed, but triumphant. (It was a set-up anyway, of course. The camera crew was ever-present, and medics checked the pair every day.) Nonetheless, we listened fascinated as he described finding nothing to eat for the first 12 days but grubs, minnows, chameleons, and one dove egg.

The crowd roared with cheer as we heard Joe tell producers on his audition video, “In Dubois, we have the toughest-ass Scout troop in the United States. No doubt about it.”

We murmured with assent when he dismissed the threat from 4-ton hippos that live in that swamp and regularly crossed “his” island. “Scared?” he said. “No. I live every day with grizzlies [nearby]….Where I live now tests me every day.”

We were silent later, as we watched our 55-year-old tough-guy neighbor on the screen, by then himself grizzled and filthy, staring with a deeply furrowed brow and moist eyes at the tiny woman young enough to be his daughter. She had broken down when sharing the experience during her job as a beat cop that had broken her heart. After vowing not to touch her without her consent, Joe reached out and gently stroked her arm.

We had seen the words “Dubois WY” exposed, so briefly and so rarely, to the entire vast continent. Everyone saw them there, proudly tattooed in pixels over Joe’s living embodiment of our “brand”: Tough as nails, in many ways remote, yet deeply compassionate when someone is in trouble.

The simile goes beyond even that. Like Joe himself on that virtual reality show, we people of Dubois are fundamentally concerned about our town’s survival, and always intent on assuring it — but at the same time uneasy about getting too much visibility.

Before the film rolled, Joe had shared with us the mission statement that had kept him and his companion going during those kinda lonely 21 days. Here’s part of it:

“To thrive, not just survive, and to do so with passion and compassion.”

Did you notice that all three of my examples of national media attention have told very positive stories? Enough said.

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© Lois Wingerson 2015

Our Wanderers in the Wilderness

Wanderer2 The day before yesterday, just uphill, I spotted Matthew huddled by the roadside. I know his name only because I asked and he responded, grinning through his missing teeth.

So that’s how far he’s come by now, I thought. Matthew has been the subject of conversation here in Dubois: our very own homeless guy for a brief while. Not settling down here. Passing through.

Someone spotted him first out east in Crowheart, laboring forward with his overloaded shopping cart. Then he was found sleeping in the town park, and later seen shopping in the Family Dollar, loading his cart with food.

Back in New York City, overdressed homeless folks with shopping carts are a common sight, and one usually avoided rather than watched. Here people offered help, and rides, which Matthew refused. As I too found, he doesn’t want to say much and doesn’t accept offers of help.

Like everyone else, as he said he was headed up the pass I worried about exposure, and about bears. That shopping cart loaded with food is surely bear bait.

“I’ll be all right,” he said. “I know what to do.”

Wanderer3On my morning bicycle ride today, I came across another young man by the roadside with his backpack, heading the other way (toward town). “Are you all right?” I asked.

“Oh, yes!” he said brightly. Quite a different fellow indeed.

“Are you hiking the Continental Divide trail?” I asked. He nodded, and then asked how far it was to town and whether he would find cellphone signal there.

This is the second man I’ve met in as many weeks passing through town for a break from the Continental Divide trail. It’s a good place for respite: You can sleep overnight in the Episcopal church (but please behave yourself), and there are showers for a dollar at the laundromat.

Dubois feels about as far from Syria or Greece as you can get, but we do see some refugees of a sort. We are decidedly remote here. Perhaps exactly for that reason, we have migrants passing through now and again–people walking alone, on their way somewhere, or nowhere, perhaps in search of themselves as much as any particular place.

What drives these lone men to travel the highway on foot and sleep outdoors in the wilderness? Not exactly political persecution, I hope, or fear of brutality. Who knows what demons they are escaping and what refuge they seek?

Here we don’t want to intrude or probe, and won’t press anyone to accept help if refused. We wish them well on their way, and maybe worry (or pray) for a while.

Want to read more about living in Dubois WY? You can read weekly updates via email using the link at the top of the right column.

© Lois Wingerson 2015

Of Scissors and Sisters: Beyond Shopping

Scissors2Back in New York City, if I needed something, I would find the store that sold it, take the subway there, buy it and take it right home.

Here in Dubois, I often need to be more patient. But when I finally come by the item, it may arrive with much more meaning.

The big scissors came from Sandy, who used to sell jams and jellies as a vendor at the weekly farmers’ market. She was wiry, gruff, and plain-spoken, and she had a ready laugh. When I think of her, I think of courage and good cheer.

One week Sandy asked me if I needed anything. We all knew that Sandy was dying of cancer, and she knew it too. She was downsizing, divesting herself of many things. No point in holding a yard sale: She didn’t have anyone to inherit the cash.

I was making curtains for our house at the time, and my good sewing kit was still back in New York City. The next week Sandy turned up at the farmers’ market with these fine, substantial sewing shears. Every time I cut fabric, of course, Sandy comes to mind and I work with a smile.

A few weeks ago, I needed to replace a zipper. I did have small scissors, but the points weren’t sharp enough to pull Scissors1thread from a zipper seam. So I called my neighbor Anna, who lent me her own neat little sharp-nosed snips.

Soon after, I ran into Anna at the photography show. “Thought I might see you here,” she said, reached into her bag, and pulled out the small pair of scissors in my picture above. (See how neatly they fold up and collapse so the points can stay needle-sharp in the sewing kit?)

“What do I owe you?” I asked.

“Oh, nothing,” she said. “I found them today in the Op Shop and thought of you. They’re a gift.”

Each time I see them I think of her thoughtfulness. A truly small item has gained extra importance, and the thought will probably smooth those pesky little sewing jobs from now on.

Well worth the wait.

Want to read more about living in Dubois WY? You can read weekly updates via email using the link at the top of the right column.

© Lois Wingerson 2015

More to Love in Dubois: The Farmers Market

Another charitable venture, the farmers market offers nothing but the best from midsummer, and usually draws a crowd …

Granted, the high mountain desert of the upper Wind River Valley is not the most fertile ecosystem on the planet. We are fairly well supplied with produce FarmersMarket2_080615by the supermarket, and some residents keep their own greenhouses. But when the weekly Farmers Market opens at 5 PM Thursday a long line builds quickly at the checkout.

Volunteers manage the farmers market. The office manager of St. Thomas’ church drives to Jackson and back early Thursday morning, bringing back farm-fresh delights from as far away as Utah and Oregon. Later in the season she drives the same distance in the other direction to Riverton, after the local growing season kicks in there.

A small, jam-packed and well-tended garden beside the church provides fresh greens and some vegetables, picked on the spot for farmers market customers. Look at the crazy carrot someone pulled last week!Carrot

Below you see my haul from last Thursday’s market — or part of it, anyway. We’ve enjoyed several peaches and quite a few greens over the weekend.

The farmers market is another mission of St. Thomas Episcopal Church. As usual in Dubois, the proceeds from our pleasures go to charity. In this case, cash profits go to the local food bank. Most unsold produce goes to the food bank or the senior center.FarmersMarketHaulWant to read more about living in Dubois WY? You can read weekly updates via email using the link at the top of the right column.

© Lois Wingerson 2015