ardbol

Posts

Electricity

After the long journey , we placed the boxes in the container. Ready to be unpacked. Because I found it quite exciting, I waited for Maaike to do it together. I've done quite a bit with electricity before, but this was definitely more than I've ever done. We consulted the documentation and got to work, first checking if we had received everything listed on the packing list. That was quite a search, two things turned out to be missing. After texting, it turned out that they had already been incorporated into another device. From the off-grid center, we received two schematic drawings. We consulted them and tried to place all parts on the ground first. This seems easy with a schematic but was more challenging than expected. The colors of the diagram did not match the wires, moreover, there were labeled cables that we didn't need. Lastly, what was confusing was that the batteries did not need to be connected and that an extra fuse was provided for the generator that was not sh

The hague university

Before we are going to write about setting up our first power plant, there is one more blog that’s been on the shelf for a while. In spring 2022 Maaike’s family had a reunion, family being all aunts and uncles and cousins from fathers side. At that time our idea of buying Bárcena was still very fresh, but the idea was born so off course we talked about it. Cousin Joep, who works at The Hague University and the department of energy transition, was very interested in the project and said at his work they were always looking for projects for students and ours might be a good candidate. In the year that followed we stayed in contact and when it became more and more certain that in September the village would be ours, we agreed to do a minor on the university on our project. The project being: what do we need to make the village have power all year long this off grid. So in September 2023 we had a meeting with four students who were going to work on the project. Therefore Tibor made a des

Food forest design

Last week Martijn Ballemans, his wife Zoë and their children visited us in Bárcena. They are traveling with their camper to get inspiration for where they want to live. They were in the neighborhood and stayed one night in Bárcena. Our first visitors stayed the night! It was very nice to meet them there and to hear what they think about the place. To discuss things about the future food forest. We celebrated Trisa’s birthday, Martijn helped with setting up the electricity and Zoë made a soup from the nettles in the villages. The first meal made from Bárcena products! And it tasted very good. Now that Martijn visited Bárcena, it is really time we write about the food forest design. In October 2023 Maaike started a course “Design course for food forest and edible garden” with Martijn Ballemans from PuurPermacultuur . It was a 7 day course where we would learn how to design a food forest. About the first half of the course consisted mainly of learning about what a food forest is and get

Excitingly boring journey

For the upcoming vacation in Bárcena, a lot of work is planned. We want to install electricity and water. Of course, we need the necessary materials and tools for this. We're ordering a large part of it in Spain, but we're taking some from the Netherlands ourselves. Hence the idea was born to buy a trailer and drive it to Spain. After some searching and bidding on Marktplaats, I found a good and affordable trailer. We could pick it up from an older couple who received us very kindly. We walked through their yellow, smoke-filled house; they both had a cigarette between their fingers, to the garden where the trailer was parked. They used it for the flee market, but they've stopped doing that now. It looked fine, except the floor plate needed replacing, which we did. They gave us a net, a lock, and a homemade tarp against the rain. The only thing missing was a spare wheel and a lamp for the license plate. We hung up the spare wheel, but we didn't have time for the lamp, so

Offgrid Center

Bárcena de Bureba has been deserted because it wasn't connected to the power grid 100 years ago. Initially, the residents found it too scary; your hair stands on end, and you could even die Barcena it. Later, the younger generation raised funds, but someone ran off with the money. Long story short, a village without electricity, and the last resident left 40 years ago. We want to make the village inhabitable again, but in a better way with a smaller ecological footprint. With current technology, solar panels will form the basis of our energy generation. We asked The Hague University of Applied Sciences to conduct a study to see if this is feasible. After six months of work, they delivered an initial version of the report, indicating that it's possible, but support will be needed during the winter months. This support was initially based on biofuel. Hopefully, we can avoid this; we're not looking forward to burning wood, especially if 50 houses are all doing it. To gain expe

Radio NPO `Geld of je leven`

After the articles in the newspaper, we were approached by quite a few TV channels to make a program. This is, of course, very exciting but also intense. We made a list and will take some time to think about how we want to approach this. When we received a message from the radio, we thought let's start with that. It's only fifteen minutes, so nice and manageable. After some back and forth calls and pre-discussions, we were invited to come on Monday, March 4th. This, of course, unless there would suddenly be really important news. Maaike and I took the train to Hilversum, near where we live. But it's still exciting. It's a live broadcast, so being late is not an option. We were greeted by friendly staff, sat down in a beautiful space with microphones and cameras. First, there was a serious topic about medicines going through long approval processes, which could even lead to fatalities. Then it was our turn. We talked about our project, that we want to improve the world