Archive for April, 2009
Thursday, April 30th, 2009
Liberator 2 Production Rate Calculations
The basic design rationale for MicroTrac hydraulic pump (and engine) size requirements is the ability to power the Liberator 2 CEB press to the extent that it can produce 6 bricks per minute. See calculations. This indicates 360 bricks per hour, or about 3000 bricks per 8 hour work day. Wow. This involves a …
7 Comments » - Posted in Compressed Earth Block Press by Marcin
Wednesday, April 29th, 2009
Hexahatch Incubator Prototype Construction and Testing
In the last few weeks I’ve constructed the Hexahatch egg incubator and am now testing it. Here are some pictures of how to make it:
It started with Marcin drawing up the basic idea.
Then I worked the sketch into a design.
When we were satisfied with the initial design, we got the 4 inch drainage pipe …
8 Comments » - Posted in Construction,Open Source Chicken Incubator by Jeremy
Wednesday, April 29th, 2009
OSE Tour in Austria
As already mentioned in this blog, Open Source Ecology will have a booth in the Subversive Fair event in Linz. This was arranged during the Invisible Intelligence conference organized by Peter Weibel and Franz Nahrada in November 2008 in Graz , where Barbara Pitschmann of Social Impact presented the Subversive Fair Project. The …
28 Comments » - Posted in Open Source Ecology by Franz
Tuesday, April 28th, 2009
Augering
LifeTrac is back out in agriculture action. We mounted the power take-off motor on the front loader arms, and attached the post-hole digger. The post-hole digger was from our former, now defunct D17 tractor. We dug post holes for staking our grapes, and augered planting holes for a couple hundred hazelnuts:
This exercise was …
2 Comments » - Posted in Accomplishments,Permaculture by Marcin
Monday, April 27th, 2009
Industry Standard Cooking Video
This is a video that Molly made when she was here a few weeks ago. We have plenty of eggs from our chickens, and here’s the standard of what we do with them. You can call it Depression Cooking Lesson 1, in the style of this.
7 Comments » - Posted in Cooking by Marcin
Saturday, April 25th, 2009
Kidding at Factor e Farm
There was some kidding going on at factor e Farm on April 15:
The goat exloded once then twice. After the first baby was born, mama goat stood up, and the second goat dropped right on the ground with a sloshing thump. What an event. I felt abundance as the new goats were dropped.
1 Comment » - Posted in Goats by Marcin
Saturday, April 25th, 2009
Moving Forward: Solar Village
Jeremy and I had some serious discussion on the goals for this year, and here are our conclusions for the Core Team from the conversation:
CEB Press and LifeTrac taken to product release by end of 2009 – led by Marcin
Hexahatch taken to product release and Sawmill taken to first prototype by year end – …
10 Comments » - Posted in Open Source Ecology by Marcin
Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009
Facility Sanitation Improvement (by a factor of ‘e’)
To our colonic relief, we added a second composting toilet, a public outhouse with privacy. Now no one needs to wonder who is going to enter the vestibule while performing defecation maneuvers. Albeit temporary, it satisfies our immediate needs. Thanks to Orin for helping construct it!
We also moved the humanure compost to south-west of …
11 Comments » - Posted in Accomplishments,Biotecture,Challenges,Collaborators,Construction,Documentation,Factor e Farm,Factor e Team,Infrastructure,Open Source Agroecology (OSA),Open Source Ecology,People,Quality of Life,Volunteers by Jeremy
Friday, April 17th, 2009
Infrastructure for 2009
I will explain our planned infrastructure in response to questions raised two posts ago. We should start by saying that we eat our own dog food with respect to the Global Village Construction Set (GVCS)- and as we bootstrap one technology upon another – the infrastructure is built piece by piece. GVCS is …
14 Comments » - Posted in Infrastructure by Marcin
Friday, April 17th, 2009
Last Frost Date
Two days ago marked the last frost date. I took a video walkthough – on the plant life and landscape of Factor e Farm. This is to record the natural history and evolution of our place – not only for seasonal, but yearly, changes. Fruit trees are beginning to bloom, and life is …
