Musings: The desert waits

So it is early June and we continue to be under extreme drought conditions.  I sit on the deck reading a book called the Natural History of the Senses written by Diane Ackerman, listening to a very talkative bird.  The desert spawns small dust devils and the smell of heat vaguely reminds me of the California State Fair.  It is the mingled smells of hot wood and metal, but not so pungent since there is a distinct lack of humanity.  The trees have bloomed and started to set seed, but unlike last year, both are sparse.  Still I partake of some fresh palo verde beans at just the right stage of development.  Fresh palo verde beans are similar to fresh peas.  Both are legumes and I anticipate when I can harvest the dry beans to test cook to see if they can become something like baked beans.  It would be nice to learn how to use what naturally grows here, but I digress a bit. 

The breeze is dry and fairly steady and the one bird talks like a chatty Cathy; it is otherwise silent here.  The bunnies vie for water dripping from a hose, thrashers hop around looking for something to eat, and the trees look like they’re waiting.  They are green with meager fresh growth, but not the lush green that comes with monsoons. The desert is waiting, waiting for the next season-the one of rain and humidity.  The season of distinct temperature changes from the heat of the early day to the sudden cool that comes with the afternoon downpours.  The trees wait, the animals anticipate, and I look forward.

Desert homesteading

There are many ways to be self sufficient, and as time continues, you will see our unique ways of trying to be so.  We live in the very bio-diverse Sonoran Desert on the west facing bajada of the Tortolita Mountains.  What does this mean?  It means that traditional western farming, even small family farming, would not be very successful.  While we have five acres, about a third is occupied by a wash.  That, plus my love for nature and wildlife, limits the room we can use to grow food.  Furthermore, I am the main yardwork/gardener person and I am not the best with machinery, though I can do basic mechanics and use many machines.  I find I prefer handiwork to get things accomplish.  Thankfully, my fiancé John is better with maintenance and operations of the necessary machines we use.  So how can we grow enough to feed two people regularly?  As I just said, we live in the very bio-diverse Sonoran Desert.  That means ALMOST EVERYTHING IS EDIBLE.  So while we plan to grow some common food crops in garden beds (corn, tomatoes, peppers, squash, etc.), I also am familiarizing myself with the many native food crops that grow here naturally.  Some of these foods are: cholla buds, mesquite beans, palo verde beans, prickly pear pads and fruit, saguaro fruit, and several native leafy greens.  Add some traditional perennial crops harvested by the natives before this area was colonized by Europeans, like agave and yucca, and you can add some unique regional flavors to the daily cuisine.  Of course, this doesn’t even include animals.  While we are seriously thinking about adding some chickens, anything bigger is a little more questionable.  But again, nature provides.  We may not have much in the way of large game most hunters are familiar with, but we have numerous quail, cottontail and jack rabbits, javalina,  small varmints, and occasionally deer.  The goal is to live harmoniously within our environment while being as self reliant as possible.  We still have a lot to learn, but I will share this journey with you.