Flores Permaculture

My relationship with my house began in 1983, when I was a boy receiving an odd gift from his estranged father and seafarer. I spent my summer break with my father in my "new house and farm", and became familiar with the land, the village of Fazenda and the Island of Flowers.  The trip made quite and impression on me. Above the original stucco can be seen intact. As my father took a break from the familiar Atlantic Ocean and  began sailing the Pacific, he stopped visiting the house regularly and my little house fell into disrepair.  Above is my boyhood bedroom and my boys future bedroom as of 2007. I employed the help of friends to aid me in removal of the old stucco that was full of fungus and vegetation. The bare stones were exposed and allowed to dry. My father had painted on my bedroom wall a picture of his journey to the island.   I did my best to preserve it, but as the old stucco dried it fell from the stone...

We were lucky to have a strapping young lad stay with us for a few weeks.  We put him to good work helping to fill bags with sand and gravel and then send them down the zip-line to the concrete mixer. Odin and Mitra had a great time wheeling the line back after the load was removed at the other end. Frank was a huge help in bringing the concrete blocks (CMU) from their drop off location to the building site. Thank you very much FRANK!!

After expanding the farm for the last five years, I am finally satisfied that Zones 2 and 3 are producing well enough to feed us through the winter!  This summer I turning my gaze again to Zone 0. The first step was to install a new zip-line to get materials to Zone 0 from our Zone 4 drop-off point.  The limitations of our summer-only dirt road dictate that heavy construction be done in the dry summer months only.  I asked my good friend Augusto to build me a new and improved post with a return wheel to bring the empty wheel and hook back after sending down a batch of building materials.  He used a recycled trike wheel as the base of his design that includes a brake to control the speed of the descent down the mountain.  Odin and Mitra love to help operate the brake! The first job is to build my boys their own private bedroom.  The original stone house had two dividing walls inside to create two bedrooms and a kitchen.  Those wall...

The foundation has set and now Phase II begins.  Phase II involves building the  concrete columns that will support the solar panels and rotating axis. The north column stands nearly three meters tall, so a pedestal is required to strengthen the structure and minimize bend or cracks. Also do to intense winter wind loads and the fact the uppermost solar panel will stand four meters above ground level, it is crucial that the structure cannot topple and land on our roof.  This iron reinforced bench will add 1700 kilograms of weight as a counter force. I decided to us natural stone as a functional form, rather than wood or blocks.   The bench should seat four people, one at each of the cardinal directions.  This will be ideal for watching the sun rise from the ocean. It takes a little more time to select and align the field stones, but I want this to be Art as well as Engineering. The bench is nearly at the final height and ready fo...

Our off-grid home is powered by a Hydro-Turbine.  In the winter months we get more than 500 watts of output non-stop.  During the late summer months we start to get less rainfall and therefor we get less wattage.  As global warming shifts our system of winds and ocean currents, we anticipate drier summers.  As a result we are adding an additional 1,000 watts of power to our  system.  In the winter we will have more hot water and heating during the day and we will maintain our current standard of living in the summer when the rains stop and the sun beams down. The tracker is designed to maximize yearly output of solar power by following the sun's path from East to West daily at  a constant 23 degree angle. The first stage of the project is to accrue all the building materials and get them to the site.  Not a simple task without a 4 wheel drive truck. All the sand and gravel must be bagged up and then hand carried to the top of th...

This project was inspired by heavy rains last October, when  a flood wiped out our roadway and deposited mud on our roof. Phase one was implemented when  we set new tubes in March of 2016. Phase two was built in  April of 2016, when we built an iron reinforced concrete structure. In May we finished the bulk of the project  when we covered the reinforcing iron and tubes in concrete. However it was only in July, with the help of Wells, Hadas, Avichai, and our trusty little robot, that the 6,000 pound structure was finished. Now we await the coming storms to test our new system.

Magnus has been working steadily to stabilize the bridge that connects the farm to the rest of Flores Island.  Using a cement mixer and some help from friends, the project is stable now. A special thank you to  José Carlos,  Elisabete,  and Fernando  of  our local government  for providing materials and transport of those materials to our site. Over 6,000 pounds of sand, gravel, iron and cement were placed to create a massive spillway in times of flooding.  This is a continuation of  the spillway project  previously blogged. Iron reinforcing bars binds the concrete into a single mass to resist erosion and allow heavy vehicles to pass safely over the tubes. Odin and Mitra are happy to apply water to the curing concrete while  it hardens. A temporary stairway allows easy passage to the gardens. The project is nearly finished, only a bit more materials to fill in the exposed tubing and to guard ag...