Naiomi log

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Sunday, April 20th 2014

Happy Easter!

We pressed more bricks, stacked more bricks, improved slurry production at the microhouse 2 site. Another group of us (including me) spent a lot of time in carpentry, making the upper sections of the walls. There will be some great videos posted online of the process by Max who captured the whole day (and other days) events. Kindly, he's edited them so they are in fast forward. They aren't posted yet otherwise I'd add the link here.

In the evening we placed tarps over the house and brick pallets to protect them from the forecasted rain.

Later in the evening another discussion ensued, facilitated well by [Colten][1]. In reference to that discussion, here are some resources to explore further:

  • [The Social Progress Imperative][2]
  • [B Corp certification][3] - enables companies to obtain certification for achieving standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency
  • [Benefit Corporation][4] - what it is (different from B Corp Certification)

Saturday, April 19th 2014

Woke up around 6am and stretched the legs by jogging to the lake. Or almost to the lake, we were greeted by a seemingly unwelcoming dog and trespassing signs. We turned around.

Shower. Breakfast. To work! Half the group focused on carpentry - making the door and window frames and ceiling beams. The other half, including me, focused on the CEB - making bricks to lay and stack on the foundation. The OSE team stated early on that we're working with prototypes and there will be lots of trouble-shooting. The CEB team experienced this today. Electric wiring issue, arduino coding issue, clay too hard and not mixing with soil satisfactorily, hydraulic hose bursting (hose had an extra covering which kept the fluid from spraying), and soil having a lot of difficulty falling into press consistently. This made for a lot of on / off working and waiting throughout the day.

The microhouse 2 is being made with the exact same soil that was removed from the house site to lay the foundation. The soil was piled off to the side and the OSE tractor breaks it up, scoops and drops it into the CEB press hood.

The crew stands at attention to clean the bricks spitting out of the CEB press and pass them on to stack along the foundation walls. The press makes bricks at about 360 (need to check math) an hour - if working consistently. We are trying to make about 3000 bricks for the house walls. So about 10 or so hours of just brick making. The team make breaks into the evening in order to be able to stack bricks on the walls tomorrow as the brick making continues. http://opensourceecology.dozuki.com/Guide/Installing+Microhouse+2+CEB+Walls/145

Made a run into town for some drinks for the crew. In talking with the gal at the cash register, learned that Maysville water is not good about every 2 months and the residents need to boil their water in order to drink it during that time. The town water apparently is brown and not safe to drink. I'm guessing the OSE water is well water - its not brown. There is also filtered water. Nice. Interestingly, the gal at the register didn't know why the water was bad about every 2 months.

Just got distracted by a really engaging discussion on for-profit approaches to empowerment/knowledge sharing. About an hour's worth of thoughtful sharing and brainstorming. :-)

Friday, April 18th 2014

Factor e Farm is located at 909 SE Willow, Maysville, MO. I had to call on the way to learn this. Willow Rd is a gravel road off of 33.

We toured the farm - HabLab, workshop, prototype houses, an old workshop and the Microhouse 1 and Microhouse 2 site.

Dinner.

Welcome and presentation/introduction by Chris. Laid out plan for the next day and week.

Talked. Then slept!