(dry brush credit: Pernilla Carlsson.)
Fridhem Gaard.
This picturesque farm located in southern Sweden's southern plain, is my birthplace in 1955 and where I lived with our family until 1974. When my parents wanted to downsize and retire, I was also determined to stay in the area and then had the opportunity to take over the farm in 1999.
Early Fridhem Gaard, long before my time (1910-ish)
I already had a idea but no definite plan of what to do with the property.
The first thing was to divide it into private/business. This was already done at the takeover in 1999, so there would be no question of what was what, something that always annoys the IRS.
Two different ways to negotiate and limit cost on investments.
1. You can chose to trust and go with private subsidies from the government.
We found out early that the government, municipality and their hordes of civil servants are not a friend of individual self-governing efforts and will do everything to stop your progress despite them deceitfully and publicly portray themself to be supportive.
2. Or you can do everything in one company or limited company. We chose to have a sole proprietorship, a partnership and a limited company on standby as a "backup" if the others failed. You always have to "triangulate" and have a contingency plan.
This has been very successful and something we have no reason to regret.
The early years:
The farm already had 2 tenants/lessees when I took over as landlord. This increased to 3 in the first few years of my time as owner. The operations consisted of short summer season leases and did not turn over sufficient funds to run the farm efficiently. Anyway, we pushed on cuz after all, a little business is better than no business at all.
Heavy investments:
At this time I started renovating the farm, the private building first, and then the "to be" hangar. We also invested in a small aircraft, SE-IDA to fly advertising, tourists and guests. The airfield was established with 28X210 meters in 2002 and then expanded to 28X480 meters in 2004.
The Piper Super Cub 150, SE-IDA. Based in Lagos, Portugal since 2017.
In October 2023, SE-IDA was relocated to Palafolls Airfield, Catalonia, Spain.
You can follow the trip here on this linked “Coming Soon” substack.
The 21/9 2024 IDA was sold and flown to Prague by her new owners. She was mine for 20 years, a very good and useful machine.
Aerial view of the farm. The bay in the horizon, “Foteviken” a confirmed Viking trading post.
Energy. Ie. light, heat & utensils:
If you are going off grid, first thing to consider is an AGA cooker. If you produce enough electricity you can run it on that, we however, opted for a gas burning one.
Consider to have the floor heating option installed, we didn’t at the time, but would do it today. It can possibly be retro fitted. The AGA can also use diesel - its just another burner.
The AGA cooker is available to order from us. Fridhem Gaard 1877.
This AGA was the heart of the “Three Lily Buds” fine dining restaurant operating here in 2008-2011. A great spin-off from the restaurant was Master chef Jeffery Scott Browns “South Plains Brewing Company” that was originally funded and founded at the farm.
Reducing power consumption.
As soon as LED lights became available we changed most of our lightbulbs (90%) to that standard, and we always have had gas stoves in 3 kitchens - except for lately in the apartment, where we now use an efficient induction stove top for the convenience of our guests. All our electrical appliances are now A, A+, A++ or A+++.
Keep the main fuse low, unless you need a big one because of your production.
All these combined efforts allowed us to run the farm on 3X25A fuses, which is quite impressive for 800m2 heated buildings. Sometimes a fuse would blow, but this has not happened since we introduced our own power production in 2014/2015. A good advise is to go 3 phase from start with everything, we had to upgrade because I did not have my “3 phase guard” up - and looked away for just a second, while the installers did their own thing.
As with all projects, not everything went according to the original plan, but in retrospect, most of it was actually pushed to something that was close.
The biogas project was never implemented (probably a good thing - too complex)
The early plan 2008.
Steps to self governing sustainability:
One of the first measures was to replace the sewage system with something more sustainable. The municipal solution would cost us SEK 400,000 and then an eternal monthly fee. We decided instead on Alnarp Cleanwater, an organic system that allows us to use the cray/fish pond as the final filter, this for a one-time cost of SEK 180,000 and then no fees, only 2 small pumps, a sequenced Danfoss, and a continuous running air pump driven by the electricity that we produce ourselves completely free of charge.
The actual sewage system and the Dali that supply energy for it:
Water and garbage disposal still with the municipality.
The iconic veteran Climax wind pump imported from Merweville, Karoo in South Africa, is now on standby to pump water if we need to disconnect from the municipal water connection. We do keep municipal water for now, because the water is great and still affordable, it’s also the same invoice as the garbage disposal, and that one we will never avoid for sure.
Our Dali featured in Innoventums investment prospect. Real time production data.
The VAWT and Proven wind generators was scrapped for an Innoventum “Dali” wind turbine at 3,7kW capable of withstanding 64 m/s, with 8 solar panels, then we added another 30X 400W Solensenergi panels on the small house roof, something that was always the plan.
30 X 400W panels with 15kW SolarEdge inverter. Real time production data.
Backup heating:
Any off grid house need a wood burning stove. We have a Vermont Castings “Resolute Acclaim” - You can fill it 3 times a day and it will keep a 200 m2 house warmer than you could ever wish for. A stove like this is always more efficient than any open fireplace, and with the added value of an emergency stove to cook on.
Vermont Castings “Resolute Acclaim.”
The small house (150m2) also has a pellet stove connected to the underfloor heating, it can be operated on our own electricity and then limit the heating load on the battery if there is no mains. The farm has around 30 willow trees that produce all the firewood we need, it would of course also be desirable to produce our own pellets, but not there yet.
MCZ pellets stove. 85% energy to the underfloor heating and 15% to ambient air.
How to manage energy production:
A recent addition from Ecokraft was a Sonnen 22kWh battery with Protect 8000, a control unit that makes the farm electrical system "off grid" capable. A great feature of the Sonnen is that it make all loads visible and somewhat controlled. I have unfortunately no experience with Tesla Powerwall2, but I believe Sonnen is as smart or even smarter.
Sonnen 22kWh batterie with Protect 8000 (on the other side of wall) from Ecokraft.
Note: All the wire mesh is from audio/TV, there are no visible cables on the Sonnen.
A typical 24h cycle October. (Winter mode “Time of Use”):
The Sonnen graphics on top, se grid kWh cost per/h below.
A near perfect 24h cycle, March. (Winter mode “Time of Use”):
We have found that you should have the approximately same production capacity as storage. In our case: Prod. 18-20 kW, Storage 20 kWh.
A perfect 24h cycle, May. (Summer mode “Automatic”):
On sunny days (May-Sept) we don’t pay anything for electricity on a 24h cycle, but after own consumption we are selling a fair share during the daytime.
The System with color code as in chart:
The full current system. Real time charge/discharge data.
Late addition:
When all else fails. Diesel! 400V, 50hz, 8kW backup power. from Hyundai.
The water storage we prepared (an old urinal well) was never used as we instead changed the heating from water/water to air/water inverters in the small house and expanded the single air/air inverter with a dual Daikin dito in the apartment, and thus the preheat function was not needed. For all inverter work we use KLIMATteam.
Free transportation:
Our long-planned South Africa-powered project for our own EV SUV co-developed with SAAB, Electroengine and Koenigsegg was scrapped in 2010 in favour of Tesla EV’s and two destination chargers, installed in 2017/2020.
Production was planned in Port Elisabeth, South Africa.
The actual reason for investing in Teslas was our 2-3 times a year X-continent Portugal/Sweden journeys, and the free supercharging offered with the 2017 and the 2020 Model S. Together the two have now been Sweden-Portugal/Spain and back over 10 times since 2017 saving us many 100.000’s SEK. from Tesla Malmö.
Uncensored communication:
The off grid benefits of a StarLink connection is that it has no ground stations the antenna connects directly to the satellites, only in need of a small amount of power drawn from the Sonnen battery in our case. With a StarLink on battery supply, you will always have uncensored Internet and IP communication.
Starlink RV. High speed, low latency satellite internet from SpaceX.
Wine.
Our own wine from Winemaker Carsten Migliarina, Stellenbosch, South Africa.
Fridhem Gaard Shiraz: One straight Shiraz 2008, and one Shiraz/Mourvèdre 2008/2010
Other useful tools to be commented on later:
Ferrari 340. The only Ferrari we need. from Hallant.
The second week in April, The Ferrari tiller made a perfect sow bed for our midsummer potatoes. This pro machine is so much better than the old tiller from Husqvarna.
Lamborghini EVO 100. The only Lamborghini we need. from Rosenqvist Maskin.
2023: After about 100h in the Lamborghini the 17 year old almost untouched 24 ha was turned into productive farmland once more. Mattias from Nilssons “Motor Circus” helped sowing 22 ha green peas with his Rapid - for Foodhills.
2023 was a bad year due to draught and we got only the guaranteed amount that cover cost, but the main thing this year was anyway to get the land into production after 17 years of inactivity.
2024: Mattias from Nilssons “Motor Circus” helped sowing 23 ha hemp with his new Rapid - for Ekolution - and then there was no rain for 2 weeks, finally after the rain it looks late - but promising. Now the hemp is racing the weed, I have my money on the hemp.
Quicke Loader:
5/9 2024 The Lamborghini got a loader from Agro Maskiner installed.
2010 - 2020 Restored wetlands and wildlife initiative, just one of the projects that was torpedoed by over stretching government.
After a meeting requested around 2010, with Naturcentrum, a consultant to “Länstyrelsen” (the county board) where we were the only landowner of about 30 farmers concerned, to accept the expansion of wetlands to benefit water flow and wildlife including sea trout in our furrow, of course at the cost of some of our farmland.
After 10-11 years of planning, consulting, measuring and the excavator entrepreneur’s inspection and approval, we gave the go ahead 2020. Naturcentrum was delighted and reported to Länstyrelsen that the expansion could finally start…
Suddenly there was a demand for a “kulturutredning” (culture investigation) utterly amazing after 12 years of planning - they came up with this.
At this point we have had enough of their bureaucracy and stopped the project indefinitely.
The prime, if not only, purpose of government is obviously not a concern of nature, rather a way for the authorities to maintain a workload for themselves motivating and expanding their own existens.
From now on we do NOTHING in co-operation with authority. One exception being “Lantmäteriet & Jordbruksverket” and that for necessity only.
The planned improvement of our furrow as presented by Naturcentrum.
Protection & Hunting:
The Marlin will take down a Grizzly or stop a bus coming at you:
Marlin 1895 Cowboy 45-70 Government. from Jakt och Friluftsgården.
The Beretta is great for small game hunting:
Beretta Silver Pigeon 12. from Jakt och Friluftsgården.
The ERMA is for small game and vermin control:
ERMA Werke .22 Long Rifle. from Jakt och Skytte.
The licence free FX airgun is for low cost target practice:
FX Dreamline Lite. from Baraluftvapen
And if there will be war, we have the machine :)
Lt. Alanson Lillibridges, WWII battle proven Piper L-4H 1943.
To be continued….
Latest N.E.W.S. :
Allocation of land and buildings to the farmland property.
Presently building “Gårdskontor med Vinkällare” ie. farm office with wine cellar over the former 1930’s urine well, in strategic anticipation of future political developments.
Our 20 year old IVT Greenline 17kW had a serious fault. Instead of repairing (around 20,000 SEK) we are replacing the entire system with an IVT GEO 616E with speed controlled scrolling compressor, new heat exchangers, frequency controlled groundwater pump, integrated pool heating and APP control. Efficiency (SCOP) 5.6.
Installed cost approximately 175,000 SEK. The investment reduces electricity consumption, reduce the strain on the main fuse and makes the entire farm completely optimized for “Off Grid” options - if the need arises.
More later….
360 of the farm by Can Burçin Şahin Photo: https://fastout.com/p/WPEUGPE
This story is true and related from the farm: An Inspiring Tale of Unruly Sheep:
”Advice to sheep: For the best available freedom and safety, learn to jump the fence or at least teach your kids to jump the fence, be vigilant and sharp. Don’t listen to the mob of cowards, and have a good life, as long as it lasts.”
All and everyone is conditioned by the system to some extent, but You decide Yourself how much it controls Your life. #my6c
Impressive! Really good job you have done with your property Anders. And thanks for sharing it.