Hello from New Mexico and SE Arizona!

pricklypear · July 9, 2008

Hi! That's wonderful about your son going to Texas A&M. My own son has also done two tours in Iraq, and that was very very hard. But he's back in the U.S. now, and finishing up his first degree part-time (still in the Navy.) In nuclear enginerring, then he wants to go on to oceanography. It must be very hard for your son to watch his wife go to Iraq. May all go very well for them both!

Your cob house sounds like a great idea. I have heard of them and I have thought that that's what I would do if it ever came to building a house on my own-- actually I came across the concept in a strawbale building book. Maybe a strawbale would be the way to go if that were at all possible, though, as the insulation is something bgetween an R -30 or an R-50, depending on how you lay the bale. Straw is cheap and a forgiving way to build, and you wouldn't need air conditioning, and not much heat at all either. I am not familiar with where you are thinking of going but I will check on the map.

We do intend to build a couple very economical strawbale outbuildings on our place in AZ when our house here sells, as I am a writer and my husband is a saint carver and we both need more space for our stuff, my gazillion books and his wood, and we have to be able to get away from each other for hours.

I do have a raised bed garden with earth that was trucked in here, apparently a balanced soil as it grows things fine and I haven't had to amend it yet. (I am talking about here near Silver City at about 6800 ft, not about our place in AZ). I get my produce for canning from a local farm, about 50 miles away in Deming (going towards Las Cruces). This tends to be chile pepper, onion and pumpkin, peach, pecan and sometimes pistachio country. Lots of those. It seems to me about the desert that it is very fertile. The main "amendment" needed is just water! Before I married my husband I had a garden in my place in Glenwood not too far, at about 4700 feet, and sandy, on the San Francisco River, and as long as I watered whatever I planted grew huge and happy. Before the gopher wars began, at least.

In my raised bed here I have been planting things that keep coming back because they can make it through our colder winters, where below zero is common. I have perennial chard, arugula, sorrel, Welsh onions, so I can have salads to go with my sprouts and of course parsley (I make pesto with it) and mint and lots of other herbs. I also put in a few annnuals, often tomato plants, in it now and then. So far this year my tomatoes are doing well.

I also have a little cherry tree that does well, and two apples. My guess would be where you're going that apricots, peaches and pomegranites would do well. You'll be in a better position than I am to grow a wider range of things, because you won't have to worry about such hard freezes in the winter. I have a friend who gardens in AZ, in the Chiricahuas where we're going when our house here sells, and with steady planting she turned it into a real Eden. I can't wait to go there and do that myself!

If you can hunt and fish out there, go!

There are some very independent women out here. They have had to be. Sometimes the choice of men out here is just not that plentiful or great! :*) But you meet the most marvelous women!

I remember my female neighbor in Glenwood was marvelous. She was helping me put in my swamp cooler and she said, A WOMAN HAS TO GROW A THIRD BALL TO LIVE OUT HERE! LOL

So that's really what I think of it. That we just have to grow a third ball. I have never regretted growing mine. :*)

nmchick · July 10, 2008