Chilly, wet weather didn’t stop the crowd from settling in a meadow at Green Oaks Farm and Retreat for the first Strawberry Festival.
“It was like stepping into a dream,” said Davenport resident Kate Alm, who brought her family for the homemade food and festivities. “We got out of the car and it was just music, hot chili and cornbread, macaroni and cheese, some great organic beer, and kids playing everywhere.”
  
(Use arrows above to view more photos) |
She wouldn’t get an argument from Green Oaks co-owner Stephanie Jennings.
“We just like having more people come to visit our farm,” Jennings said. “The festival we did in the fall went over so well we thought it would be good to do a spring one.”
Jennings and co-owner Paul Pfluke held their premiere Harvest Festival in October and followed up with the Strawberry Festival. In part, they hoped to drum up new members for their community agriculture program, which kicks off in June. But based on the turnout, Jennings says the couple plans to solidify both festivals as yearly rituals to ring in the seasons.
From mid-day into the night, people ate, drank, warmed their feet by the fire and danced to a new kind of live music – one powered by the audience.
A handful of musicians rotated on and off the “stage” – a patch of grass under cover of canvass awning – while audience members took turns generating electricity from a stationary bicycle that powered the PA system. Some of the band members perform exclusively with pedal-powered systems.
“They’re awesome, and they’re kind of a new technology,” says Joey “Cello Joe” Chang, a friend of farm manager Airielle Love, who performed Saturday. “We can play wherever we want – we don’t need an outlet or an extension cord.”
Chang recently wrapped up a two-week pedal-powered tour through Utah with Shake Your Piece, a folk band that also played at the festival.
“It’s cool. We can play in canyons and hot springs or wherever,” said the self-proclaimed “veggie maniac.” “It demonstrates the ethic we espouse … It is (a means) to lead the way in sustainability and to have harmony both on-stage and off.”
Jennings and Pfluke hope to foster that kind of attitude among Coastsiders through various programs and events at the farm, and have found a believer in many, including Alm. She says she’s passing down the ethos of community to her son.
“He was out this morning picking his strawberries,” she said Tuesday.
w