Ericka norris

Dog trainer here.... Huskeies are difficult if you have live stock. It is very difficult to keep them from killing chickens the methods I use have worked consistently with 100's of dogs but not so much on high prey drive dogs.

I know it sounds strange but....
when we have a unusual heavy monsoon season all kinds of plants come up in the high desert, theses seed can be dormant for 50 years. If you do a bunch of soil prep and planting then water all those dormant seed are going to germinate and completely cover the ground. These wild and adaptive plants will choke out all your work. It took me 3 years to get to where my drylands grasses are not being out competed during the monsoons. I finally am ready to start planting more trees and shrubs that can live here to stabilize my arroyo. Much of the current vegetation are thing indicative of depleted soil. I also have a lot of stuff growing that have deep tubers that swell up when it rains some can hold 200 pounds of water. While they are serving the purpose of preventing erosion eventually I would like to replace some with plants that can feed us. This fall I will be planting green manure that should come up in the spring. So many plants here need to be sown in fall and then get wet and dried out over and over during the winter to germinate.
While I don't always agree with folks at Plants of the South West they do have a lot of hard won intergenerational wisdom. Maybe ask more questions on why they recommend that they did?

Santa Fe had a siberian elm eradication program they were spending millions on every year. They some grad student doing his thesis pointed out 80% of the tree canopy in SAF is Siberian elm and it is already to hot to plant cottonwoods.
The news thinking in arid regions is to keep the Siberian elms as they will survive the coming heat and reduced rains.
In my area the only deciduous trees growing wild are Siberian elms and desert willow.

I would try planting understory shrubs , serve berries can make it under elms, maybe wild plum, jujube on the edges of the shade.
The States extension service will have some 411 as will Plants of the South West.
This years low cost Tree and shrub sale by the forest service is in July you get the starts in the fall. It's about $80 for 40 plants.
Most are for wind break and reclamation .
Make sure you test your soil for PH and know the type of soil ( sandy, clay etc.) work backwards from there. Parts of my property are
8.5 ph few things can deal with that. if your ph is really high like this consider inputting humic acid with micro rhizomes and
see if your community has chipped wood for low cost. I have spent a couple years working on my soil in small areas as I can.
Yellow clover can live with our paltry rain and get some of those mircrorhiza to get going and get some nitrogen in the soil.

My son has celiacs and Hashimoto's . He is in college and the food service kept poisoning him but required to pay into the meal plan which cost $12 a meal for prison food.
I noticed on a trip to Europe he want getting sick. Food that said celiacs safe was. I'm gluten intolerant but have no problem eating wheat in Europe.
I think the whole GMO issue is actually causing the activation of the the celiacs gene. It is also causing more and more food intolerance .

you can't compost your way into "good soil" in NM, many have had long term success with microrhysomes with humid acid. After 5years of adding compost and not getting much improvement this helped a lot.
I don't think the advise from Plants of the South west was bad for your area. If you don't do it that way you will waste more water and have a weed farm as a lot of the invasive here will out compete you desirables.
It will take several years to build the soil here.

I how you see this. I'm in the same situation in Bernillio County North of Albuquerque.
Can you share how things went, what worked what didn't?