Sat 6 Jun 2009
Posted by Guest Article
Tired of marginal facilities that require power to operate?
Jeremy and I stretched ~100′ of 2/3″ black hose on the roof of the CEB workshop. Pretend it’s your roof. Then we had one cold water ‘in’ which we split to ‘cold out’ and ‘solar collector in’. We then attached this to a standard shower T manifold and BINGO! In one afternoon we had hot and cold running shower (when the sun is shining). Easy to get clean!
Wed 22 Apr 2009
Posted by Jeremy
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 the hexacubes, across from and downstream of the last stream on the west most side of the property. It’s the blue barrel in the picture below:
Wed 15 Apr 2009
Posted by Mathew
Molly and I built a hand washing station and I put together a shower Factor e Farm. This post is an analysis of the sanitation issues rooted in geography, infrastructure, and human use following Christopher Alexander’s guidelines for design analysis.
All of Factor E Farm’s housing, work, and animal facilities have been constructed in the site’s flood plain among major runoff channels. The building zone was chosen for quick delivery and easy access by car rather than drainage. Development has continued under assumptions that the site is only temporary and that a whole new Solar Village will be built to replace the original site. This assumption depends on the tools and techniques under development.
Thu 12 Mar 2009
Wednesday afternoon I packed up my most useful belongings, hitched what didn’t fit to the sides of my camping backpack and set out from Fort Greene in Brooklyn, NY to spend 3 weeks at Factor E Farm in Missouri. I’ve never been to that area of the world, and neither have many of my friends in Brooklyn. I ate my last gelato and started hiking to Newark airport for my direct flight to Kansas City.
I haven’t been so nervous about a trip in a long time. I arrived at Factor E Farm late Wednesday night. My first night was 11 degrees F but I was quite warm in a cordwood hut with my boyfriend and Jeremy. I slept inside 2 winter sleeping bags on an army cot with a yoga mat. We all slept in till 8:30 am and had oatmeal that Jeremy prepared. We wandered around, got a tour of the place from Marcin and then sat down in the cordwood hut to talk strategy.
Mathew and I had discussed the need for Factor E Farm to develop a sanitation and nutrition package before arriving. Upon arriving we were aghast to see that there was no station set up for hand washing or dishwashing that resembled our personal standards of sanitation. It took me a good hour to get over my shock. I had to remind myself that my mother and father didn’t have a well for running water until right before I was born. I’m not sure what they did before the well, my mom mentioned bathing in town.
We had a great planning session with Marcin and Jeremy and got started setting up a makeshift hand and dish washing station. We got the whole thing up and running just in time to cook dinner at 8pm tonight. We now have a 7 gallon jug of water propped up on a shelf above a stainless steel sink which empties into a 5 gallon bucket. For a dish rack we’re using a milk crate on top of a shelf for now. The set up is close to the wood stove so that the water will be a pleasant temperature. The plan is to fetch water every morning so that the 7 gallons of water will be at room temperature for most of the day. MMm . . . the sweet comfort of a clean dish. To celebrate we had some delicious burgers with grilled onions, lettuce, green peppers and melted brie.
For the record though, I strongly believe that FARMER SCIENTISTS DON’T DO DISHES. One day I hope to develop a dish washing machine here at the farm so that we can reclaim the 30 minutes we spend each day washing dishes. So spread the word: dishes are done.
Mon 29 Dec 2008
Posted by Jeremy
HI, I’m Jeremy, another member of Factor E. I’ve been here for about a month now and I’d like to introduce myself and talk about how things are going.
My background is in multimedia information technology, which I have an associates degree in. I’ve educated myself in and gotten jobs doing several different things like computer programming, apartment management, and now I’ll be working on trying to design and build our sawmill and learn about and help out with the other projects here at Factor E. I’m also quite interested in the local self sufficient food production aspect, of which even this aspect alone could mitigate or even solve many of the problems in the world.
I first came for two weeks in November to check the place out. I was a bit skeptical on the way out here, but after a few minutes of talking with Marcin in person on the way here he seemed like he had a good plan and the understanding and ability to carry it out. I also got to meet everyone here, they’re really cool people. I came here because I believe that Factor e is a very important experiment and I wanted to help out. My reasons for coming here are complex, but if you’re interested then reading the Open Source Ecology plan at openfarmtech.org could help you start to see why.
When I first arrived we were finishing up the trusses and making bricks with the Compressed Earth Block Press for the workshop/kitchen addition to the greenhouse. It was a lot of shoveling dirt into buckets for those thousands of bricks. After two weeks and talking through the plan with Marcin I had made my decision, I would come to stay at Factor E. I left to get my stuff and drove back. When I returned we used the bricks to construct the addition. Nick arrived a few days after I did. With more help things went faster, and it would be great to have more people to help quickly develop OSE projects.
Right now I’m living in the cordwood hut, it’s made out of cut sections of wood held together with a mud/straw mixture mortar, with a dirt floor, and the dirt roof is held up with interlocking logs covered by smaller pieces of wood and waterproof material. Certainly not your typical modern building, but it does the job. It has electrical wiring with several outlets and a typical light switch connected to a light bulb, all powered by the battery connected to the solar panels. It’s somewhat insulated and the stove keeps the place warm when I can get the fire really going. We got a new huge chainsaw for Christmas so an ample supply of firewood will no longer be a concern. I sleep in a nice cold weather sleeping bag in an easy chair, it’s actually pretty comfortable. We had water from the elevated shower barrel in the greenhouse but it freezes in the cold so we have to keep a barrel inside the huts for now. We also have water from the pump but it’s mixed with a lot of silt. I’d like to try building a water filter so we’ll have a constant supply of fresh water. As my cousin who just got back from Army basic training said, most people don’t realize how good they have it in the so called first world countries, and how they don’t realize it until after they’ve lost it. You really rediscover and find a new appreciation for all of the modern conveniences after experiencing their loss for a long while.
My typical day at Factor E so far has been to get up, get dressed, and try to get the fire going. Then I eat something, mostly bread from a local organic bakery, peanut butter, and honey. Then I get dressed and we run outside to work on stuff. When I first came to help with the bricks the weather wasn’t so bad, we had rain a few times and it wasn’t so cold, but now in December everything is freezing and snowy. For the cold weather and once the workshop is complete we’re doing a 50/50 plan, half the day of sitting inside doing stuff, and half outside doing stuff. Just recently we’ve actually had some very nice warm days though.
Despite all of the little hardships of everyday survival it’s not too bad and things are going to be getting better pretty soon. The workshop/kitchen addition to the greenhouse is going to have a lot things that are going to make things much nicer: a large stove with an automatic babington burner to keep the place warm all the time, a water heater around the stove flue pipe to have hot water on demand, a sink and shower connected to the hot water, a washing machine, and probably a big permastew on the stove as well. So if you want to help out in the experiment to save the world and you can handle some sketchy conditions for a while then come down and join us!
Thu 11 Dec 2008
Posted by Brittany
I have a lot to say about where I am, about what I’m doing, about what I’m feeling and about bricks. And no pictures to say it with. So, please be persistent and listen to what I have to say and perhaps we’ll all be the wiser for it.
After two years of homesteading, the floors of our two small huts are still laid with dusty gravel. As a result, a thin layer of dust hangs on everything. The walls are dusty, the sheets are dusty, the shelves are dusty. On exceptionally dry days, when the dust causes Marcin to sneeze and makes his eyes water, he sprinkles water on the floors, bringing temporary relief to his ailments.
The floors aren’t the only unfinished parts of the living space at Factor E Farm. Mice scurry between the abundant holes in the walls, floor and ceiling. A light sleeper can hear them scratching as they search for bedding and crumbs. The one-person kitchen houses more mice than the rest of the farm combined. They do not care that there is no heat in the kitchen. They don’t care because they love the crumbs. The crumbs that accumulate because there is no water to wash them away. The sink in the kitchen doesn’t work and the crumbs sit where they are dropped along side piles of dirty dishes, pots, and pans. (more…)
Fri 24 Oct 2008
Posted by Brittany
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 just enough heat to keep it above freezing. The following night however, was clear giving ample opportunity for frost to creep into the sweet potatoe, basil, and tomato beds. Frost left their leaves black and the sweet smell of decay filled the air.
Before more damage is done, we harvested the sweet potatoes.
And since the tomatoes that survived the frost are not going to grow or ripen in this cool weather, I picked and processed them into lacto-fermented salsa:
Blend together
Green (or red) tomatoes
Hot Peppers 
Cilantro 
And Basil (protected from the frost in the greenhouse)
MIx in 1 T sea salt (non-iodized) and 1/4 C whey 
for each quart of final product. 
While I was at it, I dug up some horseradish roots. If the salsa isn’t spicy enough, this is sure to make your nose run.
Add enough vinegar (I used distilled) to make the horseradish root blend up easily in the blender.
And just when you think you ready for winter, spring appears. 
These apple blossoms fared the first frost without fright. Yes, this is mid-October. At this rate, we’ll have fresh apples ready on the first day of barbecue season.
Sun 3 Aug 2008
Posted by Marcin
Yesterday, LifeTrac rolled out of the shop under the power of its own engine. It purred like a cat, turning smoothly over the ground with its articulated steering. Brittany, Jessica, and I celebrated with elderberry champagne. Farm-fresh organic, of course.
That was a great moment for the Global Village Construction Set – as I am seeing each of the pieces come to life right under my eyes, getting us ever closer to an amazing, integrated ecology of living and working – fueled and fed by the sun, plants, and soil around us. (sorry, we’ll post some videos when our Canon SD750 digital camera arrives in a couple of days).
Theres’s more work to be done on LifeTrac – installing the loader and backhoe, building the rototiller/auger attachment, and mounting the CEB press as a tractor implement. With these pieces the infrastructure for building with the CEB will be complete.
I am completely delighted with LifeTrac because of its adaptability. Next year, we aim to build a flash steam engine for it – and power it by pyrolysis oil from our own trees. 100% local organic tractor power – how sweet indeed. With the CEB, and proposed swingblade sawmill, hay baler, agricultural combine (the top dog of all agricultural machinery), and well-drilling rig attachments – all open source – that will be one versatile, life-size erector set of appropriate modern technology. We hope that this will be no less than a significant contribution to the ecological evolution of humanity, similar to Gandhi’s vision of appropriate production as is also practiced by Tinytech Plants in India.
Sat 2 Aug 2008
Posted by Jessica
Tomorrow marks the third weekiversary of my time here at Factor e. It feels like I’ve been here much longer, but only in a good way. Every day is a little bit different, but what remains consistent is hard work, thoughtful discussions, days seemingly too short to accomplish everything I wake up wanting to do, a sense of connection to the land and an overall purpose, and in my case feelings of gratitude for ending up here. This has been my first experience working on a farm (I got here through WWOOF), and for many reasons I feel like I was meant to come here, and of all the organic farms listed in WWOOF I feel like it was more than mere chance that I ended up here. I have for a few years now toyed with the idea of one day getting land, but always worried in the end that doing so would basically be giving up on society and getting away to lead a personally gratifying but overall selfish lifestyle. Having seen the vision in progress at Factor e, I feel a lot more inspired to get land, and have been shown a clear example of how I can do that while also working for the greater good, for the transformation of society, and the improvement of the quality of life in general for us modern humans. I can’t say the path to my future is clear, but I feel I am definitely on the right one. The unique synthesis of sustainable, people-oriented technology and back-to-the-land ecological lifestyle will provide a viable alternative for those who feel alienated in the world of superficial plastic economies. More and more people, if shown there is in fact another way, a way that speaks to the mind and the heart and also provides a better quality of life for us and the earth which is the source of absolutely everything we have and need and don’t need, will want to change. I believe to survive we will have to change, and finally I am starting to have real hope that it can and will happen. I may be leaving here in a week or a few weeks, but I know already that this land and the vision here have changed my life.
Mon 2 Jun 2008
Posted by Marcin
Change is continuous at Factor e Farm. You may have seen this post on how our place has evolved from a plain soybean field to rich diversity on many fronts.
To record these changes as they happen, we have begun the Factor e Live series. These are videos, aired every two weeks, that show the ongoing changes – and serve as a future record of the process of building a village. As the titles say – we are Farm Fresh Ideas – for sustainable, regenerative, and transformative development – through open source collaboration.
This is our first in the series. Enjoy. Click below, or download the file (28 MB). Please comment profusely.
