All the fun of the fair

Here's our booth at the Common Ground Fair. We were there all day yesterday and today, and we will be there all day tomorrow too, dispensing college advice as well as advice on renewable energy and energy efficiency.

I enjoyed my time with all the fair-goers, answering energy questions and trouble-shooting solar, wind and household retrofit problems.




I also got to walk around a little. The second display is our friends at ReVision Energy. Staffed largely by our former students, this excellent solar/wind design and installation company operates throughout the region.

We like them because they help out with internships and come to talk to class on a very regular basis. They are also extremely competent and honest. Energy audits are an integral part of every service. They will be sure to tell you when you don't have enough wind for a turbine, or when you'd be far better off investing in insulation done by some other contractor before you buy an expensive solar system from them.

I wish there were more companies like theirs in this business.




The blower door display was the big attraction at our booth. One interesting character, Dan Huisjen, a local energy auditor (whose email I have if you are interested in hiring his services), was disturbed by the fact that the door had been assembled incorrectly to the display frame.

This was because our poor blameless librarian, not one of our energy people, had opened up the display that morning, but Dan proceeded to set things right, and in the process attracted a crowd, who then hung around for an impromptu explication of the way a blower door works and is used.

Dan is certainly an energetic kind of energy auditor.

Other things I saw and liked: This home-made sheep stand would certainly save my back when it comes to dung-tagging and hoof-trimming. Aimee saw and liked it too and we might make one for the Womerlippi Farm.







I liked the sign at MOFGA's resident farmer's farmstead.

I am happy to identify with the peasant moniker, coming, as I do. from a long line of the same.

To my mind a peasant or husbandman is the most redeeming occupation. After all, what a peasant does is capture sunlight using efficient agriculture, taking the sun's energy and the soil and rain to make food, fuel and fiber in abundance.

Amen to that.

One good peasant can support an awful lot of people. Many more of us might aspire to this exalted status, instead of, for instance, hoping to succeed on American Idol, or for that matter, Wall Street, or emulating thuggish gangsters.

Finally, I enjoyed as always the sight of MOFGA's 10KW Bergey turning in the warm breeze above the main fair parking lot. This is of course the same model that I obtained a broken version of this summer, for the price of disassembling and trucking it to campus.

I proposed a occasional seminar class for this coming spring semester that will repair and reassemble and raise our 10KW Bergey, after which we will connect it to one of the college's meters and net-meter the power produced.