sailing the farm - a seagypsy tribe of tomorrow!

[zeyang]

hi guys.

Interested in self-sufficiency and learning old bushcraft stuff? Want to help build a community? Love the sea? Our collective, on an organic farm a few hours north of Oslo, is for anyone who wants to learn and work hard. We grow food, boats and ideas, so if you have a knowledge or interest in permaculture, farming, boat building, or sailing, come and help us create a home that is sustainable both on land AND out at sea!

We are building a sailboat (the first of many), with the hope that when she sets sail (hopefully spring 2012) we will visit other eco-villages around the world, collecting knowledge and travelling in the most eco-friendly way possible. Anyone who helps will have the chance to join our crew, a tribe of floating sea-gypsies! We also need help on the farm, as we build up the infrastructure to form a stable base for our community. This project is relatively new; we began in 2009 so there is still a lot to be done. We live with two dogs, the farm cat and some (very) free-range chickens. We keep bees and make jam; this year we harvested our first crop of potatoes and planted next seasons raspberries. Eventually we hope to grow all our food. We want to create a place that will flourish as our boats start sailing, a place where crops, thoughts, adventures, and of course boats, can grow!

Want more info?

 

[Dreadhead]

PM sent, very interested!

 

[sandbender]

I'd be curious to read all about your efforts. However you may want to nip over to our introductions section and say hello.

 

[boatman]

Very best wishes with the project. Too late for me to participate. Have you looked at Wharram's ideas of Sea People based on catamarans?

http://aboatbuildingproject.weebly.com/wharram-page.html

 

[Andy BB]

i used to own and sail a Wharram Pahi 31 when I lived in Plymouth, and met up with a lot of the Wharram crowd down in the South West. (If you're a catamaran sailor - as I was - you almost had to have had one at some stage in your career!) Hugely seaworthy if properly built, somewhat basic accommodation, but probably the ideal "sea-gypsy" boat, with a world-wide following.

 

[Stew]

Wow! What an interesting project!

 

[zeyang]

A couple of newsletters...
Sailing the Farm Newsletter

October 2011

Dear Sea Gypsies,

The snow is almost here! September and October have been productive
months here on the farm, as we have been working hard to prepare for
the coming winter. The roof on the main house is nearly finished
(with lines so straight it is almost sea-worthy!) The trench for the
winter bathroom has been dug; once the pipes are in, these
hard-working WWoofers will have no more excuses not to shower! All
that’s left will be to install the wood-burning heaters in the
barracks, and then it will be so toasty warm it wont even feel like
winter. We even have a homemade hot tub, nicknamed "The Potato Pot",
and once the sauna is built, our luxury spa will be complete! What
better way to watch the Northern Lights, than steaming in a hot tub
(that was once a milk storage tank, heated by the magic of a Swedish
potato cooker)? Especially when (to the delight of some, and horror
of others) we discovered that it is possible to measure the volume of
its occupants. Maybe life is getting a little too easy on farm and we
have too much time on our hands?

Harvest season is over and we are enjoying the bounty of home-grown
potatoes, lingonberry jam and apple sauce. Our honey is jarred and
stored for the winter, and it makes a delicious accomplishment to the
morning porridge. There has been a spate of biscuit making, which is
definitely helping us to gain some well-needed winter insulation
around the stomach area! However we are already looking forward to
next spring, and are busy making plans, dividing the fields into
potential orchards, turnips, peas, maybe even pumpkins. There is talk
of installing both a greenhouse (for those of you who cannot seem to
do without a few tomatoes) and a heated space for growing mushrooms.
If you know anything about permaculture, we are very anxious to hear
from you, because we need all the help we can get!

Finally, we want to welcome six new babies to the farm. Chicks "
three white, one brown and two black" have arrived and are giving us
constant entertainment. Turns out, chicken TV is much more addictive
than the normal kind! Four of the chicks are currently living in the
girls' barracks, the last arrived this morning with the first snowfall
and we are calling him Tuff, in the hopes that he is tough enough to
survive the winter.

That's everything from the Sea Gypsy tribe this month. We hope
everyone out there is well, and enjoying the autumn! Please take a
look at our photos and remember, if you have some spare time, there's
always room on our farm for an extra WWoofer or two. The cold is
coming, and that means work is about to begin again on the boat. She
has been much neglected over the summer, and requires some
well-deserved attention!

PHOTOS:

a.The epitomy of a Sea Gypsy farmer, wearing a stylish hat and riding
a 52 model Massey Ferguson tractor.

b.Making apple sauce with our steam heater.

c.The trial run of our machine of the month, an old-style food
processor (acquired for free and in perfect working order, although
there was a long evening of head scratching before we realized we were
using it upside down).

d.Two happy WWoofers, boiling in the Potato Pot.

e.Moving home the grass in the fields.

 

[zeyang]

Sailing the Farm Newsletter
November 2011

Dear Sea Gypsies,

November has been an exciting month here on the farm. We've had
Americans, Australians, Spaniards, French, Dutch, English... all of us
wwoofers staring at the sky, waiting for the snow to come! It has
been unseasonably warm, and we are still working hard to finish all
the things that need to be finished before winter arrives. It's
already snowing on the mountains, so skiing, ice-fishing and igloo
building are just around the corner.

The roof is not quite finished, although we hope that by the end of
the week we will be eating "Roof Cake" to celebrate its completion.
Turns out a 100-year-old roof is hard to fix! But once all the tiles
are straight, we will move onto the winter bathroom and then the boat.
Other projects this month have included fixing up the chicken coop,
turning it into 5 star luxury accommodation. Only the best for our
chickens! We have also tried our hand at plowing, which is
surprisingly difficult. Maybe there's a reason farmers decided to
swap horses for tractors... although we definitely prefer the horses!
It might just take a bit of practice to get those furrows straight.

Other news... the northern lights have been putting on quite a show this
month. Wwoofers have been busy, hunting for trolls in the forest and
sending each other on scavenger hunts around the farm. One brave
wwoofer attempted to walk along the ancient pilgrim trail that runs
through the farm, back to Oslo.

If you are interested in coming to help us out here on the farm,
please let us know. There is always space, just send us an email if
you want to try your hand at roof tiling, giant igloo building,
welding, plowing... and of course boat building!

We hope all of you are well and looking forward to winter!

Check out our photos from this month:

a.Slowly scaling down the farm, this English girl worries about life
without diesel for our tractor... this guy works best on grass and
plenty of oats.

b.Wrestling with giant snakes in the trench!

c.Safety regulations are by the book. Everyone is wearing earmuffs
these days.

d.Happy sea gypsies feasting (Australia, France, US, England).

 

[zeyang]

Newsletter April 2012. .

Dear Sea Gypsies,

Still some time until we are ready to put the seeds into the soil. Its
more or less -5 degrees C during night last weeks but daytime is above
zero.

The days have been spent welding and welding and when we havent done
welding we have spent time troubleshoot welding machines. They have a
tendency to break down unfortunately. So we bought 2 more big
machines. We also got hold of another ton of lead. There seems to be
no end to how much lead we need for ballast.

Ahh yes. We got more chickens on the farm. one of our hens found out
we need some easter chickens this year and she missed by 2 days. Not
bad. The small one is a little shy so its hard to take a picture
without getting attacked by the angry mother.

Today it will be traditional easter-dinner here on the farm with
people from near and far. Wish you all fair winds and following seas
and hope you all have a peacful easter.

picture from last weeks.

a: our chickens are enjoying longer and warmer days.
b: two more welding machines arrived on the farm.. It seems we cant
get enough welding machines.
c: Our easter chicken arrived 2 days before easter.

 

[Vyvsdad]

If only I were young free and single. Sigh....

 

[Urban X]

Agreed, if I were 20 years younger I'd be over there in a heartbeat, sadly am a little bit long in the tooth but good luck to all of the Sea Gypsies, sounds like my idea of heaven.


Si

 

[Toddy]

How are you funded ?

cheers,
Toddy

 

[Skaukraft]

Hei.

Hvor i Norge holder dere til?

 

[calibanzwei]

Hehe - I've just been reading your posts over on the lowimpact.org forums

 

[zeyang]

Newsletter May 2012.

Dear Sea gypsies

Spring has come to the farm! And then came summer, and then a few
blustery days of fall, and finally last Friday and Saturday it snowed
again. But that will be the last snow of the year, we hope - the mild
weather seems to have returned, the trees are leafing out, the
wildflowers are springing up around the river, the bees and the
neighbors have come out of hibernation (again), and we are hard at
work.

This week we mixed a few tons of lovely manure compost into the soil
of the north field, and planted eleven rows of potatoes - by hand -
which should give us about 300 kilos of potatoes in the fall to feed
hungry sea-gypsies all next winter. Next week we'll plant carrots and
onions, and move some tender warm-weather starts to our new greenhouse
- radishes, bok choi, spinach, parsley, beets, and sugar peas so tall,
they might start climbing us if we don't get them out of the kitchen
soon.

Work on the boat has really picked up recently. We've been distracted
with planting, and replumbing the bathroom, and building coldframes
and the new greenhouse - but now that the potatoes are in the ground
and the sea-gypsies are in the bath (phew), we are back in the
boatshed all the time. Our resident woodworker is about to start work
on a wooden dinghy from a traditional Norwegian design, just as soon
as he gets the greenhouse finished. And we cast two tons of lead
ballast, a very medieval process involving a wood-fired furnace in the
yard. The boat will eventually carry five tons, so there is more
casting to do as soon as the scrap yard has more lead for us.

Inside the boat we're sealing off the keel with aluminum plates - the
bow is nearly done, and then we can put in the last of the bow ribs.
In the stern, we're wrestling with engine placement - it needs to be
high enough to fit the cooling system and the primary diesel tank
underneath, but low enough that the propeller clears the stern.
Hmmmmm. Fortunately there's plenty to do while we're thinking about
it - like put on the deck! The boat will start looking dramatically
different very soon and we're all pretty excited.

As always, there's room for more in our big sea-gypsy tribe - so if
you like planting, weeding, shoveling, soldering, sawing, nailing,
welding, grinding, sewing, cooking, drilling, knitting, routering,
getting headbutted by chickens, watching 2-hour sunsets, measuring,
cutting, re-measuring, thinking, re-re-measuring, making bread,
reading sea books, eating waffles or knot-tying, drop us a line!


Picture from last weeks.

a: Sea gypsy girl making psykedelic chair-protection for the chairs.

b: Shaping wood with router

c: Potato-planting.

d: lead melting girl finished melting 2 tonns in one week.

 

[zeyang]

Newsletter June 2012.



Dear Sea gypsies

We're back to a full farm - the current crew of sea-gypsies hail from
Norway, Germany (times two), Finland, France/Belgium, the UK and the
US - it makes for lively, er, discussions in the evenings while we're
watching Euro Cup matches.

It also makes for rapid progress - in the last few weeks we've picked
the entire farm clean of rocks, planted two fields in a mixture of
cover crops (including phacelia, whose blue flowers are a favorite bee
snack), built and painted a fence around the yard, re-plumbed the
basement, fixed our fleet of bicycles, put in almost a kilometer of
fence around the biggest field, dug up half the far field looking for
a pipe leak, refinished a beautiful old door... and then, in our spare
time, built a model for the boat's dinghy, biked all over the area,
hiked down the river, spent a weekend in Oslo, foraged local plants
for dinner, built a campfire spot overlooking the valley, installed a
swing under the barn ramp, given each other mohawks, and baked about
forty loaves of bread.

And we're going to be parents! Kind of! One of our chickens has very
motherly instincts, and she's been incubating thirteen eggs - some
hers, some laid by the rest of our flock. We're expecting chicks in a
week or so.

All the farming hasn't left us much time for boatbuilding, but we
still managed to make some progress this month: the keelbox has been
welded shut in bow and stern, the last ribs are being bent to shape
and welded in, and the calculations for the curve of the deck have
begun. This week we'll finish the ribs and begin the wood patterns
for the deck frames.

We've been eating like royalty - everybody has learned to bake, and
the spring plants are out in force, so we feast on nettles, milkweed,
chaga mushrooms, dandelions, wood sorrel, and our own bread. After a
long winter of turnips, potatoes and carrots, it's wonderful to have
the green leaves that come with warm days, and the new dishes that
come with new comrades.


So, enjoy summer folks, and if you want to join us, just send us an
email.

Pictures from last weeks.

a: Sea-gypsy girl busy planning the route with help of the world-map
in background.

b: Fence-banging guys!

c: The Fencing-crew on the way to the field.

d: Enjoy a short rest after hours of rockpicking in the field.

e: Welding up the keelbox inside the boat.

 

[shootfive]

This is a really inspiring post - just wanted to say thanks! If I didn't have ties and commitments here I'd be packing my bags (not that I'm complaining about 'er indoors and my babbie)!

Keep us posted - great write ups.

 

[Dannytsg]

I always look forward to reading your posts. Thanks

 

[zeyang]

Newsletter Late August 2012.


Howdy Sea gypsies


August has been a good one.... The weather was much nicer than july i
must admit. even some of those wwoofers start to complain about too
much sun!

We have had quite an invasion from volunteers lately, and majority has
been from US, so now we have a distinct texas-slang around here.

Boatbuilding is going forward with the speed of light kind of... The
deck is on. The deckhouse is fixed. Even with the possibility to
remove to store big stuff inside. We are now working on
interior. Space for six bunk beds, kitchen and toilet/shower needs
some thinking...

We got some cool news lately. two volunteers (french/american) who met
less than one year ago here on farm, got married... even after
struggeling so hard to keep those girls and boys in separate barracks!
... some stuff must have been happening after dark... hmm.


That was big and small news from our coolest sea gypsy tribe this
month. If you fancy joining us, please drop us a line...


Some pictures from last month.

a: happy volunteers eating lunch
b: Deckhouse is soon on.
c: two pretty mermaids taking care of the raspberry field.
d: forehatch girl cleaning up inside boat.
e: wedding picture...


http://weldingweb.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=223081&stc=1&d=1346596178
http://weldingweb.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=223091&stc=1&d=1346596185
http://weldingweb.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=223101&stc=1&d=1346596191
http://weldingweb.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=223111&stc=1&d=1346596196
http://weldingweb.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=223121&stc=1&d=1346596203

Love from
Sailing the farm - a sea gypsy tribe of tomorrow.

 

[zeyang]

Newsletter October 2012.

Our big accomplishment this month was getting the winter bathroom
constructed, insulated and piped - just in time for the first big
freeze to hit the pipes in the summer bathroom. (Just in time to wash
some dirty sea gypsies.) At the beginning of September, it was just a
dark, drafty hole in the corner of the barn, and now it's a warm and
bright room with heating, double-glazed windows, a fancy new
shower... oh, and two couches, a worktable, a bookshelf and our sewing
machine. We decided it was too big to just be a bathroom, so we made
the other half into a winter living room. (If showering in the living
room and hanging out in the bathroom sounds like a weird combination,
just think of it as practice for living on the boat.)

In boat news, the deck is on, the deckhouse is constructed and
suspended precariously from the boatshed ceiling, and we've started on
the sub-deck and the insulation inside the hull. There's a lot of
infrastructure to go under the sub-deck - tanks for diesel and fresh
water, a greywater holding tank under the shower, and 5.5 tons of lead
ballast. Last week we cast another 600 kilograms of ballast in our
evil-looking smoky wood-fired crucible - only 1.5 tons left to go!

We've been doing a lot of farm work the last couple months - fall is
always a busy season. We harvested those crops we planted back in May
- onions, carrots, and 300 kilograms of potatoes! - plus lingonberries
from the nearby forest which we made into jam. And getting ready for
winter is a big job - cleaning up heaps of scrap wood, burning trash,
raking hay, organizing the bee stuff, putting snow chains on the farm
equipment, ghostriding the old tractor into the barn, and getting
things stowed under roofs before they get lost under the snow until
spring. We had our first big snowfall last night - about 15cm, and it
looks like it's going to stick around. The official end of summer
time on Saturday means the sun goes down around 4:30pm these days, but
that just gives us more night hours to watch for northern lights.
Tomorrow is Halloween, and we're going to celebrate by dressing up
like boatbuilding farmworkers and stealing candy from passing
children. Happy winter!



Some pictures and movie from last month.


This is our house band.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuzEKsQNv2o&feature=player_embedded


a: Beware of moose on deck!
b: Harvesting the carrot crop.
c: Making jam from local lingonberries.
d: Fishing in the local lake.
e: Fall bonfire with guitar.
f: Making Swedish pea soup for lunch.


http://weldingweb.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=252401&stc=1&d=1351626439
http://weldingweb.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=252411&stc=1&d=1351626445
http://weldingweb.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=252421&stc=1&d=1351626453
http://weldingweb.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=252431&stc=1&d=1351626460
http://weldingweb.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=252441&stc=1&d=1351626467
http://weldingweb.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=252451&stc=1&d=1351626523


Love from
Sailing the farm - a sea gypsy tribe of tomorrow.