First Year at Factor e Farm

From Open Source Ecology
Jump to: navigation, search

This is a brief visual tour of Factor e Farm in the first year, Fall 2006-Fall 2007.

Factore 1.jpg

Factor e Farm is our living laboratory for Open Source Ecology.

Factore 2.jpg

Step into our vegetable oil-powered Suburban for a ride.

Factore 3.jpg

We started with a clean slate. 30 acres of former soybean fields were cut bare and left all up to us.

Factore 4.jpg

We brought some life with us to repopulate the land:

Factore 5.jpg

We drank milk, straight from the goat's teat.

Factore 6.jpg

The goats multiplied.

Factore 7.jpg

So did the ducks.

Factore 8.jpg

We split 2 beehives from friends, and added Piglet to the show.

Factore 9.jpg

We added a bit of hydroponic crops, but insects ate those.

Factore 10.jpg

We planted rootstocks for fruit trees from seed, plus many other perennial edibles. See Nursery Year 1 for the rest of Year 1's nursery work.

Factore 11.jpg

We began drilling a well with our own rig. We used 30 drums for rainwater catchment from the newly built greenhouse. Redworms were busy eating poo. That was the daily grind at Factor e.

Factore 12.jpg

We built some non-engineered structures.

Factore 13.jpg

The cordwood addition took quite a bit of time. It cost $2/sq foot to build this 200 square foot structure - if we don't consider labor - which leads me to say that I wouldn't like to do that again.

Factore 14.jpg

So we looked for better ways, and designed, built, and tested a Compressed Earth Block press. Here's our first brick. We can now rebuild civilization.

Factore 15.jpg

On the energy front, we produced biodiesel. In winter, when it's cold, it turns to biobutter.

Factore 16.jpg

We generated electricity with a 1-cylinder, Lister diesel engine - and are now upgrading to solar concentrator electric power with a turbine. That's all for now. Stay tuned.

Factore 17.jpg