Harmony Festival

June 12th

One weekend in June the freaks come out to test out their costumes for Burning Man. They call Harmony Fest in Santa Rosa the "Pre-Burn" event. Everyone is getting their crews together and figuring out which costume works. Roby and I along with Sarah and her friend Amy rounded out the normal crowd.

The event had a "medical marijuana" tent for any patrons who could not last all day without taking their pain medication!! Only in Mendo. We enjoyed a bit of hula hooping out on the great lawn and jumped into an impromptu game of hackey sack.





We listened to some great music and ventured through the eco-village and saw our friend Max and his aquaponics booth. It is incredible what he has designed to encompass the virtues of permaculture. All structures should have a "stacking" feature which means don't build anything that has only one purpose. His project incorporates hydroponics with a fish aquarium which provides the nutrients to the plants and the water cycles to the plants via a pump which is powered by a solar panel and then the plants clean the water and send it back to the fish to clean its tank. Also the fish waste is displaced to a tank which then can produce methane gas for power. We are going to build a simple version here at the SLI as demonstration. We are going to use a wind turbine to pump the water for us. It is amazing how well plants grow while suspended in water.

Part of Harmony Fest is to be sustainable and eat healthy. No deep fried twinkies here. We had a great organic veggie curry and a thai tea. They even rent you regular utensils so you don't use plasticware.

After 6 hours and the Lauryn Hill concert we headed back to reality.