LEF May 2024

June 17, 2024June 8, 2024 communelifeblogLeave a comment

Living Energy Farm
May 2024 Newsletter

There have been two big events at Living Energy Farm in the last month. The first is that we are now using our simplified combine harvester in the field to harvest grain, and it’s working. The second is that, after 14 years of cooking on solar and wood, we are now making a lot more biogas and have enough to say goodbye to firewood.
And The Central Virginian newspaper here in Louisa VA did a very good article about LEF. That is here.
Easy Reaper
We have renamed our simplified combine harvester the Easy Reaper. Almost everyone relies on grain for food directly or indirectly. In the U.S., farmers have access to old American equipment. But the smallest combine harvesters are still fairly large, and quite complex. Globally, the lack of small harvesting equipment cripples the economic viability of small farms. The Easy Reaper could be a big help.
A video that shows a step-by-step walk through of how the machine works is here: https://youtu.be/5CF4laghKd4
A second video that shows the machine harvesting grain is here: https://youtu.be/i5GDyEB_VA8
The Easy Reaper is a product of many years of work. It has one belt and eight spinning shafts. In terms of the number of moving parts and overall mechanical complexity, it is an order of magnitude simpler than any other combine harvester of which we are aware. It could probably be mass manufactured for well under $2000. The cheapest Chinese made combine harvester currently available costs several times that much. We have contracts the University of Missouri and an entity called the Feed the Future Soybean Innovation Lab to produce Easy Reapers in Africa.

The first step in harvesting is to cut the grain and get it into the harvester. A “header” on a conventional combine does this. This photo shows the cut behind the easy reaper. It is bringing the grain into the machine quite effectively.

Our connection at the University of Missouri is Kerry Clark, (PhD, Assistant Research Profession in the Division of Applied Social Sciences, the CAFNR International Programs Director, and Project Manager for smallholder productivity for the USAID Soybean Innovation Lab) refers to the Easy Reaper as a “game changer for small farmers across the African continent.” She goes on to say “There are few people like [Alexis Zeigler who] dedicate themselves to helping smallholder farmers. His design will help revolutionize crop production in Africa.” We hope those statements prove true, and we are doing our best to make them come true.

The second critical function of a combine harvester is threshing –removing the grains from the seedheads. This shows us looking for leftover kernels of grain in the straw coming out of the harvester, and not finding any.

Going forward, we are going to “tighten up” the machine. That means moving the fan and cleaning screen to reduce the detritus in the grain. We want to build an Easy Reaper with a smaller threshing drum, and build one that is powered from its own wheels so it can be pulled by draft animals or a small tractor or tiller, and perhaps build a self propelled model. We also need to put some work into making the actual assembly simpler. Although the Easy Reaper is already much simpler than any other harvester, any prototype has many inefficiencies in assembly. We can reduce the number of parts, and make assemblies of parts that can be put together more easily (stamped and spot welded sheet metal instead of welded and riveted steel, for instance).
Many people have asked us, “why didn’t someone invent this before?”
Everything we do is influenced by legacy — the traditions and habits we inherit from those who came before us. That legacy can be helpful or crippling. Grain harvesting moved from one manual step to another, from one machine to another, and the grains themselves have evolved. Wild wheat is six feet tall, modern wheat is 18 inches. No one ever went back to step one and tried to simplify the whole process in one machine using modern materials and considerations.
Our job at LEF is to challenge legacies and find more sustainable ways of living. We are very happy with what we have achieved.

This shows harvested seed kernels of a rare Tibetan variety of barley. We are going to modify the machine so there is less detritus in the grain, but it is not intended to clean the grain as much as the large, expensive combines.

The Easy Reaper. Future Easy Reapers will look very similar, though the big round part on the left (the thresher) will likely get smaller.

Biogas
We have been building biogas systems for over 10 years now. Without recounting that long and inglorious history in detail, we have arrived at a biogas system that will produce a phenomenal amount of gas. A biogas digester is a colony of archaea. As the microbe colony matures, it becomes more productive, and more resilient.
Our current digester, named Seymour, is a seven foot tall, seven foot diameter tank. It has 3 feet of straw wrapped around it. It has a five panel solar thermal rack keeping it warm with internal stainless steel heat exchangers. Now that have figured out how to do this, we can say that Seymour is probably larger than we actually need.
The most astonishing thing about Seymour is how efficient he is. We had pictured something resembling a haying operation, mowing grassy fields or collecting wheat straw, bringing in lots of organic matter to feed Seymour. Well, we currently have a biogas flush toilet (which is less smelly and buggy than composting toilets, which is nice). We are feeding grass clippings from the front yard and small amount of kitchen waste twice a week. And that’s it! It’s really quite surprising that we are getting enough gas to cook three meals a day, right through long cloudy spells, with so little feedstock.

Biogas lofts in the barn. The commercial biogas bag on the left cost about $.43 cents/ liter of biogas storage. The air mattress on the right cost about $.03 cents/ liter of biogs storage. Smokers are not allowed to sleep on these air mattresses…

We have expanded our storage. We have found that air mattresses cost much less per cubic foot/liter than official biogas storage bags. So we have put lofts in various spots and filled them with biogas. The whole system generally runs at less than 1/2 psi (15 inches water column max), so lightweight storage containers work fine. It remains to be seen if we can make it all the way through next winter. But currently we are turning off the solar heat and keeping Seymour on a diet so as to prevent over-production.
Crunching some numbers about how much energy the farm uses and how much Seymour can produce, it’s quite clear we can produce enough gas to power small tractor(s) on the farm. The problem with biogas is that it has very low density. The burnable fraction of biogas is the same thing as natural gas, and that is methane. There is a lot of industrial handling of biogas and natural gas, including CNG (compressed natural gas). We are looking at the equipment to do that on a modest scale. Our friend Kris in Missouri continues to be a very helpful consultant on figuring out things like compressors.
Seymour’s good health owes a lot to Otto who tends to his needs diligently. Biogas is a lot like having a flock of animals to care for. It’s not a huge amount of work, but it must be tended regularly.
Both the expense and the regular tending of a biogas digester argue for community scale systems instead of household scale. One problem with biogas is that the digestion process is smelly. That’s not a big problem in rural areas, but it hard to imagine a lot of digesters in the crowded urban areas. Perhaps that could be improved (??) Sure would be handy to have a commercial biogas consultant on call…
Many rural ecovillage projects rely on a lot of firewood, which is not sustainable at all on a global scale. We are at the point where we can go through most of the year with no firewood at all. We do burn a small amount of wood in winter to back up our water heating system, but the amount is microscopic compared to most rural households. We are pleased with the level of energy self sufficiency we have been able to achieve.

Which Way Forward?
LEF is already fully energy independent at the residential level, and that with 250 watts of solar electricity per person and biogas. (Plus good insulation, cooperative design, and solar thermal systems). In considering setting up a biogas tractor, it is exciting to think about being fully energy independent, on a reasonably modest budget using durable technologies. We are continuing to work on plans for energy self sufficient communities (aka off-grid condos) outside of LEF. We get some donations (thank you very much!) that get used to buy solar materials for Puerto Rico and other projects. We have a lot of projects on our plate, and not all of them move forward quickly.
Much of what we do at LEF is to challenge unhelpful legacies — with building design, energy systems, and food. Even the Easy Reaper has proven a little disruptive. It’s clear that some people do not believe what we are saying, or are offended by our presumptions of simplified harvesters or making grid power obsolete with DC Microgrids in conservationist oriented communities.
The glass is always half full and half empty in terms of support and recognition for our work. We communicate with people inspired by our work on every continent. And we remain a small organization that is entirely volunteer run. We would like to spend more time promoting the idea of conservationist lifestyles, but it’s hard to know which is best. Do we spend our time making better machines, or talking to people? Promoting lifestyles that challenge consumerism is never going to be easy. We keep trying to do what we can.
Our farm is doing well. It is a good fruit year. We have an excellent, dedicated group of people at LEF. Rosa has learned how to make cherry pies from our sour cherries. Nika is honing his arguing skills to a sharp edge, especially when it comes to matters like chores and personal hygiene. David is still improving the simple washing machine. David and John continue to improve the electronics connected to DC power systems. Otto takes care of everything that everyone else forgets. Deb is managing the farm and planning our summer immersive on DC Microgrids (registration is now closed).
Please support us if you can.
Living Energy Farm is a project to build a demonstration farm, community, and education center in Louisa County that uses no fossil fuels. For more information see our website
http://www.livingenergyfarm.org, or contact us at livingenergyfarm@gmail.com or Living Energy Farm, 1022 Bibb Store Rd, Louisa VA, 23093. Donations to the Living Energy Farm Institute are tax deductible. To make tax deductible donations, do not go to the Virginia Organizing website, go here instead: https://donatenow.networkforgood.org/1388125
Make sure to designate your donation for Living Energy Institute.

Articles and videos about LEF:
Low-Tech Magazine (based in France) did a lengthy, well-researched article, largely about LEF, entitled Direct Solar Power: Off-Grid Without Batteries. It’s at
https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2023/08/direct-solar-power-off-grid-without-batteries/
That article talks a lot about optimal utilization, translate “community is the magic bullet that makes renewable energy work.”
Matt Dhillon at Cville Weekly did one of the best brief summaries of LEF we have ever seen. The article is entitled Power Shift, Award-winning Living Energy Farm Makes Living Off-grid Sustainable. It is at https://www.c-ville.com/power-shift
Truthdig did an article on LEF by Megan McGee, an excellent review of our work in Puerto Rico. It is entitled Decolonizing Puerto Rico Through Solar Power. It’s at https://www.truthdig.com/articles/decolonizing-puerto-rico-through-solar-power/
We continue to post new videos on Youtube. The latest is Solar Power Systems That Last
Forever, focused on our solar powered kitchen. See https://youtu.be/6XiHClx8d2Q

How to Never Pay an Electric Bill
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5Wk7inoIxI&t=201s
This video is a walk-through of our energy systems at Living Energy Farm. It is a concise
summary of how these systems work, and why they are not in common use already.

Solar Installations In The Navajo (Dine’) And Hopi Reservations, March 2020
http://livingenergyfarm.org/solar-installations-2020/
This is a photo essay about our project to bring durable solar energy systems to the Dine’ and Hopi Reservations, where thousands of people live without grid power involuntarily.

How to Live Without Fossil Fuel (Introductory Video) https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=Ri2U6u8p65E
Powering a Community with Solar Electricity (LEF has the only DC powered community that we know of, here’s how it works) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvdExgvHnRI&t=23s
The Best Way to Store Off-Grid Energy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wOxQ3sL9zc
Batteries that Last (almost) Forever https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfrgLsyFs0E

Virginia Homegrown created a program at LEF (the LEF part starts at the 29 minute mark in the program) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDGP0C9MIzU

International Permaculture has done 2 articles on LEF. One is in issue #93, Autumn 2017, and the second is in issue #94, Winter 2017. See https://www.permaculture.co.uk/
Article about LEF at the Atlantic Online Magazine
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/01/anarchism-intentional-communities-trump/513086/
Article about LEF in The Central Virginian
http://www.livingenergyfarm.org/cvarticle.pdf
LEF on CNN
http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2015/09/us/communes-american-story/
Cville weekly in Charlottesville VA
http://www.c-ville.com/off-grid-model-environmentalism-made-easy/#.VcHobF054yo

Gardening, Garlic, Upkeeping, Lexing, and a Festival

June 7, 2024May 30, 2024 communelifeblogLeave a comment

by Raven

We’ve gotten to the week where Facebook changed things on us. I don’t know if we did something wrong or what, but suddenly we weren’t getting pictures from outside posts. One day, if we reposted something here, Facebook put a picture with it and then suddenly they didn’t. If I added a picture they put it on but they didn’t copy it from any other site. As far as I can tell, other folks still get pictures on reposts, so it makes me wonder if Facebook has a problem with us doing it.

The first few posts came with pictures and the first one was a Twin Oaks post advertising one of their member’s blogs, that of Pam, the master gardener.

This did okay on Facebook, with five likes, two loves, two shares, and a hundred and four views. Not great, but okay.

Our second post was from Acorn’s Instagram, claiming that Justin Bieber was visiting. (Would Facebook get upset about that? You’d think they’d go after Acorn, not us.)

This didn’t quite make it, with just one wow and ninety-nine views.

The last post where Facebook reposted a pic was when we reposted Eastwind’s description of their House and Maintenence work. It’s on their website and the photo Facebook associated with it is the one that is at the top of all of the pages on the site with the title “Eastwind Community” and the links to other pages on it. Facebook just reprinted the site photo without the captions.

If there was a problem with that, as far as I can tell, that was Facebook’s doing.

Here’s what I wrote.

And here’s a snippet from their House and Maintenence page, along with the photo I would have selected.

It didn’t do badly at all, with four likes, four loves, three comments, and a hundred and sixty-six views.

So what went wrong?

The next day we reposted something from Twin Oaks. It seemed innocent enough. They had a picture of Debbie from Living Energy Farm LEXing (doing a Labor EXchange) at Twin Oaks. They had the picture, we didn’t. All we got was:

That’s the usual thing Facebook puts when we repost something from Facebook, except there used to be a picture underneath. This time there wasn’t.

Here’s what we wrote followed by what Twin Oaks had on their site.

In spite of the lack of a picture on our site, this did pretty well, with five likes, three loves, one comment, and a hundred and eighty-four views.

I thought that this was just a one-off thing from Facebook, but the next day it happened again with an Instagram repost from Acorn. And we haven’t had any pictures on any reposts since. (Although, if we create the post and add pics, they show up.)

Anyway, here’s the Acorn repost, starting with what I wrote on Facebook.

And here’s some of what Acorn wrote as well as the picture that only showed up on their Instagram page.

It didn’t do great, but I’m not sure if that had anything to do with the lack of a picture on our FB page. It did about as well as our previous Acorn repost, which had a pic. It got five likes, one love, but only ninety-seven views.

I’m not going to complain in future posts, but know that Facebook no longer passes pictures on to our feed, unless we actually put them there.

MAMA, Training, Megafauna, Earth Day, and a Question

May 31, 2024May 24, 2024 communelifeblogLeave a comment

by Raven

It was a busy week on Facebook, about a month ago.

The folks at Serenity Solidarity pointed out to me that they had just become able to support a project they really wanted to support.

This did pretty well on Facebook, with ten loves (including one from Serenity Solidarity), one comment, two shares, and one hundred and twenty-seven views.

Meanwhile, Living Energy Farm announced that they are offering a training for solar installation.

Since this is a photo off of Facebook, you can’t click on the link but here’s the application form.

This did pretty good as well, with seven likes, three loves (including Serenity Solidarity), one comment, and a hundred and forty-two views.

There’s a band made up of folks from Acorn Community called Megafauna and Acorn made a very trippy video of them.

This is a still, but here’s the actual video.

It’s a really interesting video but it didn’t do that well. It got one like and just fifty-seven views.

East Wind Nut Butters is East Wind Community’s business and they wanted to honor Earth Day.

A lovely message but it didn’t do great on our Facebook feed. While it got three loves (including one from East Wind Nut Butters), two likes, and a care, it only got eighty-eight views.

I’ve often said, that if I want to rack up the Facebook views, all I need to do is ask a controversial question. “Controversial” is the key word here. This time I asked something simple.

Even though I thought it was an interesting question, very few other folks apparently did. This bombed on Facebook. Not only did it get no responses, it got no likes, and only fifty-nine views (just slightly better than Megafauna, which at least got a like).

LEF March-April 2024

May 6, 2024April 28, 2024 communelifeblogLeave a comment

Living Energy Farm
March – April 2024 Newsletter

Now Accepting Applications for our 2024 DC Solar Immersion/Training at Living Energy Farm!

Since 2022, LEF has been collaborating with El Departamento de la Comida (a Puerto Rican nonprofit) to offer annual DC Solar Immersion /Training(s) at Living Energy Farm. Our goal with this program has been to educate Puerto Ricans in designing and building DC Microgrids (the training), while also allowing participants to experience life powered by the DC Microgrid at LEF (the immersion). Thanks to these and other promotional events organized by El Depa, there are now many DC Microgrids across Puerto Rico and Jamaica. (Check out the “Guide to DC Microgrids in the Caribbean” on our website!) In order to lower costs and make the program more accessible, going forward, El Depa will be hosting the trainings they organize in Puerto Rico.

Building a batch collector at our 2023 training.

But these programs have been so much fun that this year, in addition to the program in Puerto Rico, we will be offering one at LEF as well! This training is not just open to Puerto Ricans, but to anyone with a sincere interest in incorporating this technology into their lives. If you are interested, visit this link to apply.

Marielisa learning to wire a DC breaker box at the 2023 immersion.

The LEF program will take place on July 26 – 29, 2024. The first two days of the program will be dedicated to lecture and workshops, and will happen at Living Energy Farm. The second two days will be onsite training at a DC Microgrid installation site, Little Flower Catholic Worker house, which is 8 miles from LEF. The program is free and includes meals and accommodations (might be camping). In exchange for the training, we are asking that participants volunteer for 30 hours on a future installation on a project that has some social value to the public or a population in need. (It could be a project you find or choose.) Spaces are limited, and priority will be given to applicants who have an active project that will be applying DC Microgrid technology.

Want to learn more about DC Microgrids in the Caribbean?
Check out the “Guide to DC Microgrids in the Caribbean” recently added to our website. (https://livingenergyfarm.org/guide-to-dc-microgrids-in-the-caribbean/) This page includes maps of Puerto Rico and Jamaica, with DC Microgrid sites labeled on each map. Scroll down and click on the names of the sites to learn more about each project. We’ll keep this site updated as more systems are built. It’s exciting to watch the movement grow!

A map of Puerto Rico with DC Microgrid installation sites.

Devastating Fire at Twin Oaks
Tragedy struck our friends at Twin Oaks Community (a 57 year old intentional community 10 miles from LEF) a few weeks ago. A brush fire was started by a neighbor on an extremely dry, windy day. It quickly grew to a 200 acre wildfire that threatened several houses in the neighborhood (including a few of Twin Oaks’ residential buildings), as well as Twin Oaks’ warehouse complex. As the local fire department concentrated on saving residences, the entire warehouse complex burned. For Twin Oaks, the loss is massive: several million dollars worth of uninsured equipment and inventory that was built up over decades. Twin Oaks probably can’t afford to replace the equipment and will likely have to stop making hammocks and hanging chairs. They also lost a lot of machinery for rope making, a sawmill, and a lot of very valuable woodworking equipment. Seed processing and drying equipment was also lost in the warehouse fire.
It’s a loss for Living Energy Farm as well. Twin Oaks had been very generous about letting us use the warehouse for the storage and shipping needs of our solar equipment business. Luckily, we didn’t have any inventory in storage at the warehouse at the time of the fire. It was a close call, as our big annual shipment to Puerto Rico had gone out about a month before.
We’re doing what we can to support our friends in this difficult time. One thing we can do is help them set up better firefighting equipment. Alexis, an ex-fire fighter and ex-Twin Oaker who is very familiar with their water system, has been working with Twin Oaks to help them improve their internal firefighting capacity. In this emerging age of climate chaos, the scary reality is that even in the east we are going to need to be prepared to fight wildfires. The fire at Twin Oaks was much bigger and moved much faster than anything that is normal for this area, driven by unusually windy and dry conditions. As farmers, we are seeing more weather extremes every year.

Back home at LEF, we’ve been motivated by the fire at Twin Oaks to improve our own fire fighting setup. We’ve known for years that we’re particularly vulnerable to brush fires at LEF, since we live in the middle of a recovering clearcut, and our road is not accessible in very wet weather. Years ago we set up our own modest fire fighting equipment.
But we let it languish and re-purposed the storage tank for biogas. One reason our system was not kept up is because gasoline pumps are hard to maintain over time. The gas goes stale quickly. Last week, motivated by the Twin Oaks fire, we installed water tanks (that we already had acquired for that purpose), and set up our own “fire truck”- a hand wagon with a propane-powered pump and fire hose, ready to be pulled out and attached to the tanks at a moment’s notice. Propane is stable indefinitely, so hopefully this pump will be easier to maintain than a gasoline one. Fire fighting is one use of fossil fuels that we can approve of.
Recordbreaking Fruit Year?
In happier news, between our maturing orchard and mild spring temperatures, we seem on track to have the best fruit year so far at LEF. If you have been thinking for a while about coming out for a visit, this summer and fall might be the time to come! Our list of fruits include (roughly in order of maturity): strawberries, guomi berries, juneberries, mulberries, blackberries, blueberries, peaches, muskmelons, watermelons, pears, apples, muscadines, jujubes, persimmons, jujubes, and probably more I’m forgetting.
Please support us if you can.

Living Energy Farm is a project to build a demonstration farm, community, and education center in Louisa County that uses no fossil fuels. For more information see our website
http://www.livingenergyfarm.org, or contact us at livingenergyfarm@gmail.com or Living Energy Farm, 1022 Bibb Store Rd, Louisa VA, 23093. Donations to the Living Energy Farm Institute are tax deductible. To make tax deductible donations, do not go to the Virginia Organizing website, go here instead: https://donatenow.networkforgood.org/1388125
Make sure to designate your donation for Living Energy Institute.

Articles and videos about LEF:
Low-Tech Magazine (based in France) did an lengthy, well-researched article, largely about LEF, entitled Direct Solar Power: Off-Grid Without Batteries. It’s at
https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2023/08/direct-solar-power-off-grid-without-batteries/
That article talks a lot about optimal utilization, translate “community is the magic bullet that makes renewable energy work.”

Matt Dhillon at Cville Weekly did one of the best brief summaries of LEF we have ever seen. The article is entitled Power Shift, Award-winning Living Energy Farm Makes Living Off-grid
Sustainable. It is at https://www.c-ville.com/power-shift

Truthdig did an article on LEF by Megan McGee, an excellent review of our work in Puerto Rico. It is entitled Decolonizing Puerto Rico Through Solar Power. It’s at
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/decolonizing-puerto-rico-through-solar-power/

We continue to post new videos on Youtube. The latest is Solar Power Systems That Last Forever, focused on our solar powered kitchen. See
https://youtu.be/6XiHClx8d2Q

Support Living Energy Farm’s Climate Justice Campaign, and Bring DC Microgrids to People Who Need Them
http://livingenergyfarm.org/support-our-climate-justice-campaign/
This is an updated web page describing our broader social justice ambitions.
How to Live Without Fossil Fuel (Introductory Video) https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=Ri2U6u8p65E
Powering a Community with Solar Electricity (LEF has the only DC powered community that we know of, here’s how it works) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvdExgvHnRI&t=23s
The Best Way to Store Off-Grid Energy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wOxQ3sL9zc
Batteries that Last (almost) Forever https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfrgLsyFs0E
Virginia Homegrown created a program at LEF (the LEF part starts at the 29 minute mark in the program)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDGP0C9MIzU

International Permaculture has done 2 articles on LEF. One is in issue #93, Autumn 2017, and the second is in issue #94, Winter 2017. See https://www.permaculture.co.uk/

Article about LEF at the Atlantic Online Magazine
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/01/anarchism-intentional-communities-trump/
513086/

Article about LEF in The Central Virginian
http://www.livingenergyfarm.org/cvarticle.pdf

LEF on CNN
http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2015/09/us/communes-american-story/

Cville weekly in Charlottesville VA
http://www.c-ville.com/off-grid-model-environmentalism-made-easy/#.VcHobF054yo

Renewable Electricity Workshop, Part 2

April 17, 2024April 7, 2024 communelifeblogLeave a comment

Alexis from Living Energy Farm talks more about how electricity works in off-grid situations, including his community. A continuation from Part 1 last week.

Renewable Electricity Workshop, Part One

April 10, 2024April 2, 2024 communelifeblogLeave a comment

Alexis from Living Energy Farm wants you to know how electricity works, particularly in the context of off grid and community living.

Living Energy Farm’s January – February 2024 Newsletter

March 18, 2024March 17, 2024 communelifeblogLeave a comment

January – February 2024 Newsletter
DC Microgrids Continue to Spread in the Caribbean
John and Debbie just returned home from three weeks in Puerto Rico. The trip was a whirlwind of installations, events, checkins with previous installations, and continuing to deepen our relationship with people and movements on the island.
We started our visit staying at Otra Cosa, a queer-friendly farm and homestead in San Salvador, home to Tara Rodriguez Besosa and Millo Huertas, two friends and organizers. Otra Cosa is off the grid and transitioning to a DC system. Tara is the cofounder of food sovereignty non-profit El Departamento de la Comida (the food department, or El Depa), which has its headquarters right down the hill from Otra Cosa, and has been our biggest organizational supporter on the island.
We installed DC equipment at El Depa a year ago, but the battery system was being underused, as the building was wired for AC florescent lighting. We could have switched out the fixtures, but the existing wiring in the walls was deemed to be unsafe for use with low voltage DC. (12VDC can build up more heat in the connections than high voltage AC, therefore weak connections can be hazardous. Badly made electrical connections, like wires twisted together with no wire nut, are disturbingly common in PR.)
Depa wanted to be able to run their lights off of their battery, so the first project of the trip consisted of building a parallel 12VDC lighting system in their Agroteca (agricultural resource center) and community kitchen.
El Depa organized the DC solar training at LEF last summer, and offered the training free of charge to participants, but required that trainees volunteer for 30 hours on an installation project. Most of our trainees did their hours during this trip.

Nathania, who attended our training in the summer of 2023, wires the new lights at El Depa.

It was great fun for us to reconnect with the folks we hosted at LEF last summer, and work on projects together. Nathania, Marielisa, Tara, Ricardo and Millo all helped with the Depa lighting system.
At our next installation at Huerto Feliz, Anacaona lent her construction skills (building a roof for the water pump), Avia took the lead with glueing PVC, and Erid, the Huerto Feliz garden manager, organized volunteers and did organizational support.

A water pump for Huerto Feliz, with
Anacaona’s roof.

Huerto Feliz is a community garden managed by Urbe Apie, a nonprofit that occupies and revitalizes abandoned spaces in downtown Caguas for housing, food production, and community enrichment. The water system we built uses rainwater collected from surrounding buildings, and will be essential for watering the garden and providing services for the community during an emergency. We also installed a direct drive fridge, and a lighting/charging system for the plaza next to the garden. As an occupied space, Huerto Feliz does not have access to grid power or city water in any reliable fashion.

Erid, Sunflower, John and Debbie celebrate a job well done at Huerto Feliz.

Our work helped create a welcoming and comfortable space for people in the community to be able to enjoy the garden, charge their phones, get water, and store food. Extra thanks to Sunflower, a Twin Oaks member who traveled with us and was a huge help with the installation.
In addition to the new installations at El Depa and Huerto Feliz, we were able to check in with a few of the installations from last year. We made some upgrades to the system at Miguel and Dinorah’s, the elder coconut farmers in Arroyo. We added a vacuum breaker to improve the performance of their pump, and added a bathroom light to their 12V battery system. We visited Finca la Lluvia, a farm in Maricao that is home to writer and activist Aurora Levins Morales. We installed a direct drive fridge last year, and this year we added a 100AH battery kit to the system, to power a CPAP machine.
One of the goals of the trip was to set up an equipment distribution site so our trainees on the island could continue to do installations after we left. We bought a storage container, and parked it at the farm of Ricardo Martinez, who owns and operates a solar company, Energiza PR. Going forward, Ricardo will be distributing and installing for Living Energy Lights, along with Millo Huertas, Eva Campbell and our other trainees.

John, Sunflower, Debbie, Ricardo, and Ricardo’s wife Karla at LEL’s storage container in Caguas.

Our next visit to Puerto Rico is tentatively scheduled for this November, when we’ll do our third annual DC solar training/immersion. This year, instead of hosting the training at LEF, the training will be held at El Departamento de la Comida.
The goal is to make the training more accessible for Puerto Ricans who are not able to take two weeks off from work to be able to attend a program in the US. Now that Depa has a very developed DC Microgrid, we believe that the “immersion” part of training (allowing participants to spend time surrounded by and using the DC equipment) can be done as effectively in PR as in Virginia. It’s exciting progress. The recognition of the effectiveness of direct drive is growing in Puerto Rico. For individual users, it’s simply a cheaper, more durable form of solar. If we can get the use of direct drive to grow to a larger scale, then there would be no need for coal, natural gas, nuclear, or industrial “renewable” energy systems to support grid power.

Simple Harvester
Prototype 3 of the Simple Harvester is complete. We put prototype 2 in the field last year and achieved “proof of concept.” That said, prototype 3 is a huge improvement. It is a combine harvester that can harvest many different kinds of grain. It has one belt and eight turning shafts. It could probably be mass produced for around $1,000 USD. It’s very simple to operate and maintain.
There is a dire need for the Simple Harvester all over the world. And our machine works. It’s not just a theory or an idea. Small farmers in the U.S. can use old harvesters. But that’s not a solution for small farmers in Latin America, Africa, or Asia. BCS is an Italian company that makes two wheeled tractor tractors that are used by many small farmers. Their harvesting setup is $32,000 retail in the U.S. The Chinese make small combines, but they are complex and expensive. They are around $10,000 USD by the time you deal with import fees and what not.
We have a contract with the University of Missouri and the Soybean Innovation Lab to help small shops start producing Simple Harvesters in Africa. We are moving forward with that.
We have no interest in squeezing money out of African farmers. But if someone in the U.S. or Europe is going to make Simple Harvesters, or mass producers are going to make them, we want a share of the proceeds so we can fund the expansion of the conservationist design we have developed at LEF. Right now that means struggling with a pile of petty legalisms surrounding the patent. Wish us luck.

Simple Harvester, Prototype 3. With only one belt, it is by far the simplest combine harvester ever built as far as we know.

Simple Washer
David has been hard at work for a few months designing and building a control system for our Simple Washer. And now it’s working! We have used a cement mixer for years to wash clothes. It is not a lot of fun to use and not popular. The Simple Washer uses a rotating drum (like a cement mixer), but has a circuit that controls rotation. It drains through an Archimedes Screw. The Simple Washer is DC, direct drive powered. It does have a small rechargeable battery to run the electronic timing circuit. It’s not fully automated. You have to add the water from a hose. But beyond that, it runs through its wash cycle, and then drains. Then you can refill and run it again, and then it’s done.
It’s a very simple, elegant machine. It needs a bit of tweaking, but we have started using it to wash clothes, and it is certainly an improvement over the cement mixer. While there are many washing machines in the world, the DC models made in China are not very durable (as far as we know). The AC models are not easily converted, and many of those are not durable or repairable. The Simple Washer so far is a homestead model, something you would use outdoors probably. But it’s great to be making progress. We have an excellent crew at LEF these days. We are pleased David has made this work!

David designed and built a control circuit, and has made the new Simple Washer work. It’s an improvement for us! It runs off the solar panels right behind it (which also power an ISEC cooker).

Biogas
We do most of our cooking at LEF with Insulated Solar Electric Cookers (ISECs). While simple solar thermal cookers (like Sun Ovens) seem like a good idea, they are very limited. The ISECs work great, and biogas is an excellent compliment to ISECs. We cook breakfast every morning with biogas. Two years ago we put a large, 2000 gallon digester into operation. We couldn’t keep it warm enough, so we added more solar thermal panels. Then last winter (over a year ago) rats got into the straw and messed up some pipes. We put the digester back on its feet. Then last summer we overheated it. We put in a thermal sink and got it going again.
Then this winter we realized we had a leak in our solar heating system. We used stainless heat exchange coils inside the digester. It is an acidic environment in there. Copper coils would not hold up. One of the compression fittings we used on the stainless failed. So we tunneled under the straw and put in expensive “swagelok” fittings, and restarted yet again. With each one of these restarts, the archae culture in the tank dies back. At best it takes weeks to get it back to a healthy state.
Cooking year round in a temperate climate with 100% renewable energy is challenging. Rocket stoves are efficient, but annoying to start. And they smoke and leave soot all over everything.
Before ISECS, we did maybe 5% of our cooking solar on a year-round basis. Now its over 70% with the ISECs. We are hoping that we can cover the other 30% with biogas and not use rocket stoves any more. But temperate climate biogas is no small project. In the future, industrial output is going to decline. That is as inevitable as gravity. Based on our lessons at LEF, if you don’t want to cook over a smoky fire, future generations are going to have to manage cooking fuel on a community scale. Even at LEF, after years of trying to find a not-smoky way to cook, we are still working on it. The digester is — hopefully — in a state where we can manage it, keep it warm enough but not too warm, year round.
But we do not as yet have a year-round feed supply for it. That is going to involve taking leaves, straw, or whatever we can get our hands on, and pre-digesting it in compost piles to a half digested state, and then feeding it into the digester. It’s coming along, but cooking with clean, renewable energy has proven challenging.

Farming
We are preparing for farming season this year. We got a large pile of leaves from a local landscaper over the winter, so we will be doing some sheet mulch gardening. We will be growing a familiar variety of seed and food crops. Otto is managing the kitchen gardens. (He also takes care of Seymour, the biogas digester.) So far this year the late winter/ spring weather has been closer to “normal,” a word which has largely lost its meaning in the age of climate change. We will see how the spring progresses.
The kids have been getting a bit more involved in farm, shop, and kitchen work, though as with all kids they like their electronic (solar powered) gizmos. We do a shop class with the kids once a week. They have been reviving a woodgas system for use on a small tractor. Our hope is to be able to start a tractor on biogas, and then run it on woodgas. We may start trying to integrate that into our farming this season as time allows. Currently, we are fully energy independent apart from a modest amount of fossil fuel (about 30 gallons) that we use for a season of farming. We are hoping that in the next couple of years we can be done using fossil fuel for the tractors as well as firewood for cooking.
We remain amused the extent to which others seem to see our life as some kind of deprivation, or something they could never do, or something they do not know how to start doing. We have a good life, and we feel like our model is a huge improvement over spending huge amounts of money bulldozing forests to build industrial solar fields. Please support us if you can.

Living Energy Farm is a project to build a demonstration farm, community, and education center in Louisa County that uses no fossil fuels. For more information see our website http://www.livingenergyfarm.org, or contact us at livingenergyfarm@gmail.com or Living Energy Farm, 1022 Bibb Store Rd, Louisa VA, 23093. Donations to the Living Energy Farm Institute are tax deductible. To make tax deductible donations, do not go to the Virginia Organizing website, go here instead: https://donatenow.networkforgood.org/1388125
Make sure to designate your donation for Living Energy Institute.

Articles and videos about LEF:

Low-Tech Magazine (based in France) did an lengthy, well-researched article, largely about LEF, entitled Direct Solar Power: Off-Grid Without Batteries. It’s at https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2023/08/direct-solar-power-off-grid-without-batteries/
That article talks a lot about optimal utilization, translate “community is the magic bullet that makes renewable energy work.”

Matt Dhillon at Cville Weekly did one of the best brief summaries of LEF we have ever seen. The article is entitled Power Shift, Award-winning Living Energy Farm Makes Living Off-grid Sustainable. It is at https://www.c-ville.com/power-shift

We continue to post new videos on Youtube. The latest is Solar Power Systems That Last Forever, focused on our solar powered kitchen. See https://youtu.be/6XiHClx8d2Q

How to Never Pay an Electric Bill
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5Wk7inoIxI&t=201s
This video is a walk-through of our energy systems at Living Energy Farm. It is a concise summary of how these systems work, and why they are not in common use already.

Support Living Energy Farm’s Climate Justice Campaign, and Bring DC Microgrids to People Who Need Them
http://livingenergyfarm.org/support-our-climate-justice-campaign/
This is an updated web page describing our broader social justice ambitions.

How to Live Without Fossil Fuel (Introductory Video) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ri2U6u8p65E
Powering a Community with Solar Electricity (LEF has the only DC powered community that we know of, here’s how it works) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvdExgvHnRI&t=23s
The Best Way to Store Off-Grid Energy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wOxQ3sL9zc
Batteries that Last (almost) Forever https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfrgLsyFs0E

Virginia Homegrown created a program at LEF (the LEF part starts at the 29 minute mark in the program) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDGP0C9MIzU

International Permaculture has done 2 articles on LEF. One is in issue #93, Autumn 2017, and the second is in issue #94, Winter 2017. See https://www.permaculture.co.uk/

Article about LEF at the Atlantic Online Magazine
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/01/anarchism-intentional-communities-trump/513086/

Article about LEF in The Central Virginian
http://www.livingenergyfarm.org/cvarticle.pdf

LEF on CNN
http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2015/09/us/communes-american-story/

Cville weekly in Charlottesville VA
http://www.c-ville.com/off-grid-model-environmentalism-made-easy/#.VcHobF054yo

Forest, Peanuts, Hoop House, Lettuce, and Concert

February 16, 2024February 12, 2024 communelifeblogLeave a comment

by Raven

Once again, here is a catch up on our posts from last month on Facebook, most of which are re-posts from stuff on the various Facebook, Instagram, and website pages of the communes.

Twin Oaks posted about forest care.

This did pretty well on our Facebook feed, with ten Likes, two Loves, and a hundred and eighty views.

East Wind hadn’t been posting much on their Facebook feed so I went over to their business page and found this educational/sales piece on peanuts.

Here’s a link so you can read the original article.

This didn’t do great. It got three Likes, two Loves, but only eighty-five views.

They have a hoop house at Twin Oaks that keeps them supplied with winter produce.

This did okay, with five Likes, three Loves, and over a hundred and twenty views.

Then Glomus/East Brook Farm posted a lovely picture of Rachael by the lettuce.

This did pretty well on FB, with six Likes, four Loves, one Wow, and over a hundred and forty views.

Finally, Acorn posted this picture on their Instagram account with only a “happy new years” message on it. I am assuming it was a New Year’s concert pic.

This did okay, with four Likes, two Loves, and just over a hundred views.

Membership, Art, Water, and a Question

February 9, 2024February 7, 2024 communelifeblogLeave a comment

by Raven

Here’s this weeks sample of stuff from our Facebook feed. As usual, there is a significant time delay. These are from the middle of January.

I’m sure some of our Commune Life readers are interested in how someone joins one of these communities. After Twin Oaks posted a link to their membership process, I republished the link on our Facebook feed.

Here’s the actual link to the Twin Oaks membership page.

This did pretty well on Facebook with eleven likes, two loves, and over a hundred and seventy views.

After this, looking for something I could post from East Wind, I found their membership process and published a link to it the next day.

Here’s the actual link to East Wind’s membership process.

This did a little better than Twin Oaks, with eight likes, three loves, and over a hundred and eighty views.

Acorn published a drawing from deceased member Curt (that I misspelled Kurt).

This also did well, with four likes, two loves, and five cares (and, yes, that doesn’t add up to twelve but that’s what Facebook keeps telling me), and over a hundred and thirty views.

Glomus Commune/East Brook Community Farm is having some work done to increase their water supply and irrigation capacity.

This post did okay with three likes, a love, and a hundred and two views.

Finally, I have started putting questions on Facebook again. It’s a great way to engage viewers and it really drives up the number of views. I thought that I would start the year with this question:

Surprisingly, there were only eight comments, but I thought that they were good ones.

While there were only eight comments, it got nine likes, four loves, a share, and four hundred and forty-four views. As I said, these questions generate a lot of views.