We made it back to the Stronghold at the beginning of June. We are eager to be growing food, raising livestock and building our future. One of our first tasks is to get amendments for the garden soil. We drove to Tucson and picked up 300 lbs of worm castings from Inch by Inch in Read More
Sustainable Living
Coming home to the canyon
After traveling the country we have made the decision to move back home to Arizona. We made our decision to move back to Arizona before the Covid-19 pandemic but this major shift in the world has only solidified our reasons to call the Cochise Stronghold home. We moved our first load down this last week Read More
May 2013
Coral and James help learn how to plaster! Dave and Barbara Larson have built an adobe guest house, a straw bale and cob workshop, and a beautiful straw bale house on thier property just down the road from Windancer Ranch. They belive in simple living without over extending means and Read More
April 2013
Debby, Matthew, Joe, Krista, and Charlie all came to visit. Charlie makes good use of his truck. Coral makes good use of her Radio Flyer. Zona inspects the new stairs. Debby gets a new storage shed. Recycled materials include the door, the crates for the base base, and paint from toxic recycling. Read More
March 2013
Purchased two 2950 Gallon water tanks. James and Coral took a tour at Desert Viking Ranch in Huachuca City. We learned all about raising Boer goats for meat and milk, beekeeping, raising Dexter cows, and checked out their new aquaponics system. You can learn more about their operation by checking out their website: http://www.desertvikingranch.com/
February 2013
Planted beets, cabbage, broccoli, kale, turnips, radishes, mustard, and spinach in our new shade cloth covered bed. The bed should be chicken proof, but unfortunately the cats love to play on and around it! Started tomatoes, chiles, peppers, and cucumbers in the greenhouse Still digging out garden beds… Culled and ate Alex the Turkey
January 2013
Tried to plant winter wheat again. Alex the turkey ate it all. We installed a much more efficient grey water system from the kitchen sink and a new grey water outlet from the shower. Worked on clearing the dead wood from the trees around the property. Fixed up an old wood chipper and began chipping Read More
December 2012
We hosted friends and family for winter solstice. We culled Clyde the turkey for dinner, we had friends and nieghbors with us for the culling. Most of the time it is just Coral. Unfortunatly we learned that Big Turkey necks are much harder to cut off than chickens and small turkeys, live and learn! We Read More
November 2012
We finished putting new plastic on the greenhouse. The plastic we bought last winter was cheap and not rated for UV resistance. By June most of the plastic was brittle and flaked away. This time we used UV resistant greenhouse plastic that we ended up finding for super cheap at a local garage sale. We Read More
October 2012
Moved up from the third to the second world, we now have running water in the house! We can now take hot showers indoors and we have water running through a faucet into the kitchen sink. I still prefer our outdoor shower, but hots showers are much better in the winter! Planted a wonderful winter Read More