Saturday, April 25, 2009

Earth Day Alpine














Cleaned and loaded the solar oven and headed up to Alpine this morning for the Earth Day Festival. Cloudy when I arrived so I didn't bother even unloading it. Spent the day just milling around and chatting with folks about life off the grid. Fairly good turnout for the event. Bennett and Eric from Alpine Solar Sales where there in full force and based on my listing in on some conversations - looks like they got a couple of gigs out of the effort. They graciously donated an expensive solar oven as the prize for a contest....the first home made solar oven to melt a block of ice in order to retrieve a plastic egg frozen inside. There were about 7 teams of young kids participating. Not a great day for a solar cook off but nice to see these kids give it a shot. The winners are presented here. It was funny to watch the look on the face of the mother when she heard how much the oven retails for....kind of like when you see someone on Antiques Road Show and they are told their little doo-dad is worth a million bucks.

3 comments:

Allen Hare said...

Cool event. It's good seeing more people, especially the kids, getting informed about sustainable living. Hope it opened some peoples eyes to the possibilities.

Anonymous said...

Probably most of the retail cost of the Global Sun Oven is the 3 qt. enamel pot. Have you priced THOSE things?

Rebecca Neubacher said...

Hi John
Just a quick note....my husband and I have a house about 2 miles past the ranch. We still have a house and jobs in Ohio, but my husband (he's a contractor) spent last winter at the TX house. We have been delighted to read about your daily life in TX, as it very much resembles ours when we're there. Next year we retire and can hardly wait to really get down to it. I'm hot on the trail of building a straw bale house (studio) so the research keeps me entertained until this new retirement phase of our lives begin. I honestly cannot wait. Keep up the wonderful journal. I'm driving out to TX sometime this summer, you are welcome to come over for a visit. We can compare notes. You can't miss our house, it's just past 'dog patch', perched up on a hill that overlooks the great Chisos. Thanks again for the wonderful blog.
Rebecca