Archive for October, 2008
Tuesday, October 28th, 2008
Factor e Farm Winter CEB Convergence – This Weekend
People, we are getting into major CEB construction. Today we are building trusses for the roof. It will we an workshop addition to the greenhouse, featuring living roof, CEB walls, shallow insulated foundation, masonry stove, plus sauna running off the same stove. We’ll be digging more soil and pressing bricks the next few days.
This …
3 Comments » - Posted in Construction,Factor e Farm Convergence,Natural Building,Volunteers by Marcin
Sunday, October 26th, 2008
An apple a day
 Last year, local fruit was a specialty item. A hard frost killed nearly all the spring blossoms. The only place I could find apples was at a commercial orchard. They estimated that 90 percent of their crop had been killed by the frost.
In an effort to make up for the low production last year, …
3 Comments » - Posted in Diet,Open Source Agroecology (OSA) by Brittany
Saturday, October 25th, 2008
Biodiesel
After rain and more rain, a sunny day was warmly welcomed by all.
Yama (our dog)Â sunbathed.
The chickens ate an extra helping of weed seed.
And we made biodiesel.
Actually, I continued diligently on soldering, caulking, and trimming the solar panels. Marcin cut metal for the panel frames.  I’ve been working on the panels for …
5 Comments » - Posted in Biodiesel,Biofuels by Brittany
Saturday, October 25th, 2008
CEB Proposal – Community Supported Manufacturing
We have released v0.1 of the OSE CEB Proposal, which is a summary of our product release plan for the CEB press. This helps put the entire CEB project in perspective to supporters. The abstract reads:
Herein we provide a short overview of the Open Source Ecology (OSE) enterprise development model and deployment plan. …
11 Comments » - Posted in Crowdsource Funding,Flexible Fabrication,Open Engineering,Open Source Economic Development by Marcin
Friday, October 24th, 2008
Seasons
The calendar tells us there are four seasons. Our friend Bob claims there are two: crock pot and barbecue.
The first fall frost came on October 15, the night after the full moon. I’ve heard that the weather is coldest at the full moon. The cloudy skies on that night must have held in …
1 Comment » - Posted in Diet,Factor e Farm,Lacto-fermenting,Open Source Agroecology (OSA),People,Quality of Life by Brittany
Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008
LifeTrac Sinks Its Teeth In the Ground
Digging with the tooth bar bucket on LifeTrac was a major success.
We’ve already described the open source tooth bar in a previous post. Here is the tooth-barred bucket in action.
We have fixed minor problems with LifeTrac, including a frame that cracked in half. One can say this is field testing …
8 Comments » - Posted in Agroecotechnology,Compressed Earth Block Press,LifeTrac by Marcin
Monday, October 20th, 2008
Factor E Live Summer Bonus Addition
What do you do when your family visits? We put up a silo. Here is the footage my brother Andy put together of the house tour and silo experience this summer. It’s out of line in time – but it’s the most entertaining that I’ve seen in the Factor e Live series. …
2 Comments » - Posted in Factor e Live by Brittany
Sunday, October 19th, 2008
Lacto-fermentation
Kimchi:
Lacto-fermented vegetables are not sold in my local grocery store. They are hardly sold in any grocery store. And if you do find them, they are in that obscure “healthy foods” section. What does that mean anyway? That the rest of the store is full of decadent junk foods… and …
2 Comments » - Posted in Lacto-fermenting by Brittany
Sunday, October 19th, 2008
Backhoe Breaks Ground
The open source backhoe is complete. Check out the finished product as attached on our open source tractor:
Field testing showed some explosive news. See for yourself:
I ran over to Sweiger Shop right after, to get a larger shaft. The store was closed – I forgot it was Saturday. …
2 Comments » - Posted in LifeTrac,Open Source Technology by Marcin
Saturday, October 18th, 2008
Breakthroughs: Teeth and Other
Because LifeTrac has difficulty digging clayey soil for CEB bricks – we added breakthrough teeth. Pun intended.
LifeTrac is a toothless granddaddy no more. Now the digging bucket will munch the ground up like cotton candy.
Field testing is forthcoming. You can contribute content to the open source tooth bar wiki page.
I had a personal …
