Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Kate Wolf Festival has ‘green’ emphasis

Jonathan spent this past weekend at the Kate Wolf Festival, where he worked in our friend Evan’s clothing booth. The festival takes place each year at Black Oak Ranch in Laytonville, home to the Hog Farm and Camp Winnarainbow circus camp.

The festival honors Kate Wolf, a folk musician who died in 1986.

According to a biography of Wolf on the festival website, she repopularized folk music in Northern California in the 1970s and went on to national recognition.

From its beginning as a one-day, one-time event to celebrate Wolf’s music, the festival has grown to a three-day, three-night camping event and is in its 15th year.

What greatly impressed Jonathan about the festival is its commitment to “Keeping it Green” with as small a footprint as possible. He said that water refill stations were everywhere.

The festival website states, “We will not sell water in plastic bottles. We will provide drinking water in stations conveniently located throughout the festival site. We will sell metal water bottles and ask that you do not bring disposable plastic bottles onto the site.”

A reusable dinnerware program was in place at food vendor sites. According to a July 3 update by the festival’s Twitter account, “Sudbusters” washed more than 14,000 plates and cups.

Other green efforts detailed on its site include recycling and biofuel:
“Black Oak Ranch and The Kate Wolf Music Festival are pleased to announce that our festival runs on locally produced biodiesel fuel in all our generators. The biodiesel we use is made from recycled fryer grease, produced right here in Mendocino County, by Yokayo Biofuel of Ukiah.”
The festival also promotes ride-share via the PickUpPal online community. Davis Pedicab from Davis and Hub Tours from Napa offered human-powered transportation between camping areas and music venues.

Jonathan told me I would have loved the festival, with its lineup of folk performers combined with its green emphasis. This festival is definitely one that we will have to visit together.

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