Thoughts on Sustainability and Earth Day Food & Wine Festival

Earth Day Food and Wine Festival has been one of my favorite events since we were introduced to it 4 or 5 years ago. You’ve heard me talk about how laid back it is but all for such a great cause…sustainability. The last few years Annie and I have been doing things in our life together to work on being more sustainable when it comes to money, food, food waste, consuming stuff, and so on. Much of our inspiration has come from this event and the folks that put this event on…the Central Coast Vineyard Team, which is behind the SIP (Sustainability in Practice) Certification for vineyards and wineries.

The fact that so many vendors, volunteers, and attendees show up to this event year after year is proof that the sustainable movement is strong. I’m am consistently impressed with the list of restaurants, caterers, wineries, and other vendors that come to show us what they’re up to and are eager to talk about it. Even as I write this thinking back to the event on April 20 it makes me hungrier to do more in the way of sustainability…and trust me, we are.

This was the last year for the event at Pomar Junction Vineyard & Winery, next year it will move to Castoro Cellars on Hwy 46 West. I have to give kudos to Pomar for such a great job, they were amazing! I look forward to seeing what Castoro and the Vineyard Team have in store for us in 2014.

I had a great time this year chatting with some different folks like Jerry James Stone, Justin from JK Wine Company, Justin from Scheid Vineyards, the folks from Ridge Vineyards, Melanie from Baker & Brain, Adam from The Cork Dorks radio show, Wrath Wines, Kevin Riley from Proulx Wines, Kendall from Halter Ranch and so many more!! I think one of Annie’s favorites was meeting Sarah from Bee Wench Farm, especially because she recently signed us up for the CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) program.

I don’t feel I need to go more into how amazing the people and the event are. If you have not been you are seriously missing out. This is one of the best events in our area…period. What I would like to talk about is sustainability. We all know how important it is to be more sustainable but the problem is that we are not doing enough…and some of us aren’t doing anything!

Sustainability is not just about food or plastic…or whatever you may think it is. Sustainability is about the things we buy, from groceries to clothes to TV’s. It’s about what we are wasting and simply throwing in a landfill. It’s about what we’re spending our money on rather than saving it. It’s about being in debt. Sustainability is an all encompassing lifestyle but we have gone so far the other way that it’s hard to live that way…or at least we THINK it’s hard.

Annie and I will no longer be paying for our storage unit starting June 1^st. Now that we bought our house we are only keeping the things we want and use, the rest will either be given away or sold, and unfortunately some of that stuff will have to be thrown away.

Annie and I will no longer have cable or a home phone. We realized we were watching way too much TV and thought this would be a good way to handle that. Rather than cable we will use Apple TV and monitor how many hours of TV we watch per week. This will save money on the cable bill, save money on power, and give us more hours back toward our life. We never use the home phone therefore it was dumb we had it anyways.

Annie and I are being more conscious about recycling…trying to really recycle as much as possible (lots of wine bottles!).

Annie and I are being more conscious of the utilities we use. It’s so easy to leave a faucet running for a few minutes or leave the lights on when we leave a room…but that is using resources…so stop!

Annie and I want to take a stab at composting. We’ll see how that goes…I’ve heard great stories but also some nightmares so we will see what happens.

So, you see where I’m going with all of this. We thought these things were important anyway but the Vineyard Team and Earth Day have really been a motivational place for us to see what more we can do while still living a VERY cozy lifestyle. It really does not take much. Stop buying plastic water bottles. Ride your bike instead of drive. Cut your cable or satellite. Anything. We all think that my little life can’t change the course of things…BUT it can and it will. We really need to stop being lazy and truly start auditing what it is we’re doing…and together it will absolutely make a difference!!

Sorry for the semi rant but I think it’s very important and we hope to continue our journey with this and pass it on to Sammy. Hope to see you in 2014 at earth Day Food and Wine Festival at Castoro Cellars …but until then, create more and consume less!!