Internetless Ice storm
We have been out of touch for over a week now; an ice storm struck and while we still had power (unlike our neighbors, who do not have off-grid power systems) our internet receiver was covered in ice. As it is located on top of a tree, also ladden...
CEB Day 27
This past week we put on the roof for the cordwood building addition: Yesterday I returned to the CEB. On November 26, we produced the first brick. I got right back into it – beginning work on the automated hopper assembly – which will allow...
Winter Reflections
If winter was without snow, I would not have learned to love winter. But, I grew up with snow-filled winters and the great anticipation of cross-country skiing at the local golf course, snow angels, sledding, and hot chocolate and a fire to warm up to....
Three Days in the Life of a Factor E Farm Guest
I had met with Marcin several times and Brittany once before and I consider them as friends. Knowing the effort they were putting forward and the common values we shared, I thought it was important to commit myself to visit their Factor E Farm and take...
Assessment
How much is a twenty-foot diameter building worth…made of earthbags? Does it increase the property value or decrease it? When we first built our earthbag structure (locally known as the “mud hut”), the very small neighbouring town was...
The Wall
The walls of my addition are finally finished. We assigned all our mighty man power (consisting of three people plus one visitor) to built them in one day. You can see the beautiful outcome in the video below: We are stealing marcin for a week from any...
Jeff’s Experience and Other Visits
Jeff Budderer of One Village Foundation and Andrius Kulikauskas of Minciu Sodas Laboratory visited us at Factor E Farm a few days ago. Here is Jeff’s writing on his experience: http://blog.onevillage.tv/wp/?p=491 Jeff’s comments prior to the...
Ups and Downs and the Plan
For all of you who are interested in building global villages in the future – here are some lessons from our experience. This applies to the case where you start with raw, undeveloped land. To begin with, the upshot is that we have just succeeded...
Les Visiteurs (The Visitors)
Andrius (Minciu Sodas) and Jeff (One Village Foundation) helping Ronny and Marcin mix mud for a cordwood house. They joined us for two days of conversation, collaboration, and construction. – ——————————————————————————————————-...
Brick is Born
It was thirty days before Christmas, two thousand and seven. The first compressed earth brick was born from an open source compressed earth block press. It was smooth, it was sleek. Six inches by twelve and four. Wouldn’t give it away for twice...
