We held “An Evening of Natural Energy” last week at the Riding Ranch in Sanger. The food was great and the music was even greater. Virginia ended up doing tours because Bob was still working on his presentation. It was great to see her leading around groups of 30 and 40 people, eager to learn more about native plants and LED lighting.

The concept of the event was to entice people to come together to have some fun with “green.” The Ridings have spent the past several years turning their home into a showcase of cost effective, energy efficiency.

At the beginning of the year, we did a major remodel of the kitchen and dining room, plus we turned the third bay of their garage into a “meeting hall” complete with LED and skylighting, and of course, evaporative cooling. The kitchen received new, locally sourced granite counters, new high efficiency bay windows, high efficiency appliances, and LEDs who’s wattage totals less than one of the lights we replaced.

Bob gave a talk about how they did it and about how our history effects who we are.

And then Lance Canales and the Flood took to the Solar Powered Mobile Party Stage.  They were simply fabulous.  If you’ve never heard Lance and the band, go find out where they are playing next. They are a treasure.

Lots of people asked me how it could be a solar powered party when we had it at night?  This is exactly the kind of question I hoped people would ask, it is the reason for holding this series of events: to get people to really think about what we can do with “green.” The Solar Power Mobile Party uses a bank of batteries that are charged by an array of photovoltaic panels.  We can power lights, amps, mixers, and projectors for hours.  Plus, the electricity supplied by the system is very “clean,” and maybe it’s just me, but I think it actually sounds better than when you plug-in.  The lights are all LED so they make plenty of light without draining the batteries. We have a big screen so we can show movies too!

Oh, we nicknamed the stage “the Noodle” because it’s so long and floppity when it’s moving.  Once it’s set up though, it is solid green.  Who knew “green” could be so much fun. Mark Alvis