VtemLife on Factor e

Needed subcategory for information related to volunteering at the farm -- still playing with it.

Overview

The Beauty:

We collect rainwater from the roof. A composting system is our toilet. Chickens and goats provide us with eggs and milk. The car is converted to run on Waste Vegetable Oil (WVO) from restaurants, and our electrical power is generated from the same WVO with a Lister engine.

Sounds simple and idyllic, doesn't it? Ecological living at its pinnacle.

The Truth:

But what happens when the water system sprouts a leak; you're ready for a hot shower that isn't working; the humanure bucket needs to be emptied; the chickens stopped laying due to a heat wave; the car breaks down- twice- because the WVO clogged and snapped the injection pump; and the power generator (the Lister) cracks from insufficient antifreeze during a winter cold spell.

All of these events have happened at Factor E. Sometimes, more than one at a time. We say this not to scare you, but to prepare you. Life is beautiful, but not always easy. As inconvenient as these upsets are, I wouldn't trade them in for city water or store bought eggs. These experiences teach us fundamentals, like the value of water and the reality of raising food.

When a difficulty does arise, we expect people to take responsibility for their own needs. If the water is down and you need to have a hot shower, we expect you to share in the responsibility of making it happen. That is what creates a progressively more beautiful Factor E Farm.

Beauty and Truth Combined

To reconcile the good and bad points of our life, it must be emphasized that things change on a daily basis. For example, we secured almost 2 kilowatts of solar cells. After we set them up, we'll produce twice as much electricity as we currently use. We will be able to displace the use of the noisy Lister engine-generator completely - until we grow further and more people arrive. Given the water dilemmas, we have succeeded in reaching water with our well-drilling rig. This work is in progress. And we'll be back-hoeing several storage ponds for irrigation water. Most importantly, we'll be doing major building using the advanced CEB building method, using the machines that we have built. Moreover, we are building our own multipurpose tractor, to reduce our heavy equipment overhead.

The point is - when we hit a snag - we come up with a solution. At all steps, we are guided by principles of ecology and replicability. When we build or do something, we always ask, how can we make it accessible to others or make it into a high performance product. That is the core of our life.

Food

Some food is grown on-site. Everybody participates in agricultural production. However, we will still need to buy some food and we are asking for $50-100 per month, $20-40 per week, or $5-10 per day to help cover costs. If this is not within your budget, please let us know and we can work out something else.

We have a very small kitchen with a propane stove, but no oven. We do have a solar cooker oven with low, slow heat, a juicer, a grinder, and a blender.

Water

Water can be obtained from the hand pump on the well, the rain barrels in the greenhouse, and the streams nearby.

Communication

Our sprint phone has poor reception on site, but there are certain "hot spots" that receive better signal than others. The performance of other cell phone companies may vary, but rural areas like this one are notoriously under served with reception.

We have a 1.5M land line with unlimited internet access.

Human waste

We have a [| humanure] bucket.

The plants need water.

Cleaning

We have a sink in the cordwood dwelling now. We have a shower in the greenhouse.

Bacteria and water

Stagnant water with food in it is bad because it helps bacteria grow. Without water, bacteria cannot grow on small amounts of dried food. If there is too much food then the water cannot evaporate fast enough, and bacteria can grow. Eating utensils and containers should be thoroughly licked clean, so that any water left can evaporate quickly so bacteria cannot grow. This also helps reduce wasted food. Dried food can then be scraped and washed away fairly easily. , and to cover their own food expenses. No pets are allowed on premises because of our free-range fowl.

What would I do at the farm?

This is all negotiable, but here is an idea of our proposed lifestyle.

1-2 hours: Personal development, study, meditation time. We strongly encourage volunteers to take time to meditate, pray, do yoga, journal, read, have quality intellectual time, etc. This is where we encourage people to cultivate other brain functions, focusing, and other spiritual activities related to peak performance.

2-8 hours: Pursue research and development. This is the core activity. Factor e Farm is intrinsically linked to the non-profit work of Open Source Ecology (OSE). The goal of OSE is creating "Just Tools for Life" for a "Global Village Construction Set." For those with motivation and/or skills, this type of work might be the major part of your day: Designing, Modeling, Networking, Studying, Writing, Building, Testing...

.5-2 hours: Chores: from cooking to cleaning to brewing biodiesel, everyone pitches in.

1-4 hours: Agricultural activities. Everyone participates in food life on the farm. This may include planting, harvesting, weeding, fertility building...

1-4 hours: Main physical work. This depends on what our current goals are. For example, we might be building with Compressed Earth Blocks, fixing the shower system, or processing food.