TED - Open Source Ecology

Novella Carpenter Interview

 The Farm Institute as taught me nearly as much as I have learned in my four years of college, so I'm really excited to be returning this summer, but in a different position. TFI is expanding the age-range of their programs to teens and adults. Running programs for kids can be taxing because they don't always have their heads screwed on all the way, but with these new programs, the content is going to have to be much more extensive. From here in WI, it looks like the main focus is going to be teen programming, so it will be like teaching high school, which seems a little scary, just being 4 years removed.

I have one coworker who I'm teaming up with for the programs, and we're going to be doing some oxen training, and building a solar greenhouse onto the main office. I'd really like to plant some spring wheat, and while it's growing we could overhaul a bicycle to power a belt. The belt could be connected a thresher, or a grinder for grain processing, or it could power a sewing machine, a table saw... maybe we could adapt it into a small people powered airplane.

The point is that we could take rye or wheat or corn or quinoa or amaranth, and from the point that it reaches our humble farm, we could grow, harvest and process into flour all these grains, without any sort of petroleum intervention.  What about calling it the Grass, Roots & Grains Project?

Summer Project

This guy is a genius. A bicycle powered anything. I think it would be beautiful to build a bicycle that could power a thresher and grinder. With a scythe you could have a petroleum free grain operation.

Canned Food Inventory

Took inventory on the canned goods today.

We have (from left to right)
1 jar chard stems
2 jars pickled beets
3 jars rattituille
2 jars diced tomatoes
4 jars pured tomatoes
4 jars marinara sauce
5 jars apple sauce
2 jars fast spear pickles
2 jars sliced fast pickles
3 jars fermented spear pickles
2 jars dilly beans

Stinky Day

At the end of last semester I was short on time before leaving, so I left my big crock of fermenting cabbage to it's own devices. Today I came home after a month vacation to find the stinkiest sauerkraut I have ever smelled—actually the stinkiest thing that could have been called food—and intense mix between blue cheese and armpits. 

I should have canned it long before the semester was over. Not only was it stinky, but it had begun to totally disintegrate—stinky cabbage sludge! I was sad that it had been neglected, but not at all to see it outside in the garbage. Gross!

Rotation of Crops

I'm on the cusp of my last semester at College, and my new job at the Farm Institute seems right on the horizon. I just heard that a greenhouse addition to the main office ala Earth Ship is in the works. We could grow food all year long and heat the house (via passive solar) in the winter. I'm most excited about the prospect of a future farm tech showcase with different hydroponic setups, including a window farm and an aquaculture system. I have an idea that we could make a aquaculture system that raises very small fish that feed on algae — hopefully some that we can fry and eat.

Inside the main hallway/greenhouse of an earthship
[http://new.earthship.org/buildings/global]