Opinions on moving to the American Southwest ( New Mexico ).

   I fell in love with New Mexico over 30 years ago and have been wanting to move there since, on a recent visit went to Georgia O'Keefe's Ghost Ranch (I'm als a painter) and found this quote from her prescient:
"If you ever go to New Mexico, it will itch you for the rest of your life." - Georgia O'Keeffe⁣ ⁣

I've been camping and traveling most of the state for the past few years in all seasons and am determined to live there.

   Later this month I'm doing a strawbale workshop in Michigan, with the idea of building my own strawbale in NM, with passive solar, solar and rainwater harvesting systems ( I have a history of construction and everything carpentry related) and arid desert permaculturre.

  The recent heat domes, droughts,  etc.. affecting the world and articles predicting this is just the beginning and things could get much worse. This has given me some concern, while I was thinking about moving to the middle of the state, I am now seriously considering living farther north closer to the wetter areas and lower average temps. Possible even into southern Colorado.
I used to live up in the mountains of Colorado in South Park County for a few years and also in Austin, TX., also Tampa, FL and born raised here in Ohio, so I know about living in various climates.

   My main concern is water! Most of the state has very low average precipitation:

Would like to hear from people that have moved to the Southwest, live there or grew up there?

Should I look for property where I can definitely have a well (which can be very expensive in NM) or should I find one connected to city water (which means closer to the city and on the grid, yuck!).

Also for those off grid with water collection, any idea on how much water you use daily, monthly, yearly. I've looked at some figures online and they are all over the place.

For those currently in strawbale or cob homes, how do they insulate against the heat?



Some pics from my travels in NM, the colors in these absolutely do not due justice to the actual ones.

I used to live on 20 acres in the wilderness of Socorro County.. near a lil ghost town named Riley (Santa Rita). Waaay too much to get into right now, but I would suggest that you focus on your source of water. I collected rainwater into two 1600 gallon tanks, and built roofed areas solely for the purpose of collecting more water. I could tell you some stories, but I’m saving them for a book.. working title of “Land for Sale in New Mexico”. It will be a fictionalized autobiographical true crime tragicomedy. Funny enough, where I live now, just outside of Death Valley, was the extreme northwest corner of what used to be New Mexico in its territorial days. No wonder the chili seeds that I brought with me do so well here!

For rainwater harvesting, check out this thread.

Kyle, I work in the area of rainfall capture for domestic purposes.
Consumption figures may drift around, but some include garden watering, and if the rainfall varies across the country different garden watering levels will occur.
Water can be captured from the air without power, using dew, fog traps and rainfall systems.
The use of wells is an issue I personally dont agree with, but that is another matter.
They are costly, need power and may be polluted.
Basically, some areas are impossible to live and you seem to be referring to that issue.
Reliance on irrigation from big schemes may be a problem as well, as we all watch the Colorado and California problems from anywhere in the world.
I am in Australia.
If you study some of the middle eastern skills about building, water use and living in a hot climate it will help.
I put created  a topic on it a while ago.

We moved from WI to NM in 2019 and are still living in a camper and slowly building our house. It is a tire bale house, earthship-inspired, and it is amazing at holding the temps. It is 10-20 degrees cooler than outside for the highs and 10-20 degrees warmer for the lows.  In northern NM cold will probably be more of an issue than heat. We will not need any AC nor swamp cooler but will likely need heaters. We hope to capture all our water, and water haul when we need to supplement. Area wells have arsenic and uranium. Rainfall varies greatly year to year. Cocorahs.com is a great resource for real distributed rainfall info. We had a good monsoon last year for an unusually high 13". This year we are running about half that.

We are glad we made the move but will be happier once we move into the house!

Good luck!

Ted Abbey wrote:I used to live on 20 acres in the wilderness of Socorro County.. near a lil ghost town named Riley (Santa Rita). Waaay too much to get into right now, but I would suggest that you focus on your source of water. I collected rainwater into two 1600 gallon tanks, and built roofed areas solely for the purpose of collecting more water. I could tell you some stories, but I’m saving them for a book.. working title of “Land for Sale in New Mexico”. It will be a fictionalized autobiographical true crime tragicomedy. Funny enough, where I live now, just outside of Death Valley, was the extreme northwest corner of what used to be New Mexico in its territorial days. No wonder the chili seeds that I brought with me do so well here!

Hey Ted, Good luck with your book, yeah I'm planning on at least a few other outbuildings with roofs to supplement the main house water system, for a garden, trees etc..., I'll probably end up near one of the mountain chains in a higher elevation.

John C Daley wrote:Kyle, I work in the area of rainfall capture for domestic purposes.
Consumption figures may drift around, but some include garden watering, and if the rainfall varies across the country different garden watering levels will occur.
Water can be captured from the air without power, using dew, fog traps and rainfall systems.
The use of wells is an issue I personally dont area with, but that is another matter.
They are costly, need power and may be polluted.
Basically, some areas are impossible to live and you seem to be referring to that issue.
Reliance on irrigation from big schemes may be a problem as well, as we all watch the Colorado and California problems from anywhere in the world.
I am in Australia.
If you study some of the middle eastern skills about building, water use and living in a hot climate it will help.
I put created  a topic on it a while ago.

Thanks for the reply John, I was looking for consumption for say one individual, no garden etc... I want a baseline to plan from and then after that I can figure out how much permaculture I would be ablle to support with additional building etc...

I have been reading and watching videos of dryland/arid water reclamation and permaculture...some really amazing things have been done in the ME and elsewhere.

Kimi Iszikala wrote:We moved from WI to NM in 2019 and are still living in a camper and slowly building our house. It is a tire bale house, earthship-inspired, and it is amazing at holding the temps. It is 10-20 degrees cooler than outside for the highs and 10-20 degrees warmer for the lows.  In northern NM cold will probably be more of an issue than heat. We will not need any AC nor swamp cooler but will likely need heaters. We hope to capture all our water, and water haul when we need to supplement. Area wells have arsenic and uranium. Rainfall varies greatly year to year. Cocorahs.com is a great resource for real distributed rainfall info. We had a good monsoon last year for an unusually high 13". This year we are running about half that.

We are glad we made the move but will be happier once we move into the house!

Good luck!

Great to hear from someone there now, how close are you to Abiquiu? I love that area.

Hope you get your house done soon, I checked your website and there's some great reading there, will get into it more later!

Thanks for the rainfall link as well.

I know you're on a mesa but is there slope there for swales etc...?
What are your plans for permaculture there, have you researched any desert fruiting or nut trees?

Kyle,

I'm in a climate that is high-desert to some extent.
Images of the Southwest always look gorgeous, but gardening is very difficult compared to Midwest. Water is one thing, then you have hot drying winds that prevent blossom development, huge diurnal temperature changes that retard growth and ripening, surprise late and early frosts (especially in very dry years), animals that are desperate to get any moisture and get it from your plants. Soil has low contents of organic matter.
What grows effortlessly with minimal or absent care in the Midwest here needs a lot of constant work.

My daily water use per person:
-cooking/drinking 10 l
-cleaning 5 l
-washing 10 l
Daily per household:
-animals 30 l
-garden watering 150 l (the garden does not provide even 5% of what I eat)

Kyle Hayward wrote:

Ted Abbey wrote:I used to live on 20 acres in the wilderness of Socorro County.. near a lil ghost town named Riley (Santa Rita). Waaay too much to get into right now, but I would suggest that you focus on your source of water. I collected rainwater into two 1600 gallon tanks, and built roofed areas solely for the purpose of collecting more water. I could tell you some stories, but I’m saving them for a book.. working title of “Land for Sale in New Mexico”. It will be a fictionalized autobiographical true crime tragicomedy. Funny enough, where I live now, just outside of Death Valley, was the extreme northwest corner of what used to be New Mexico in its territorial days. No wonder the chili seeds that I brought with me do so well here!

Hey Ted, Good luck with your book, yeah I'm planning on at least a few other outbuildings with roofs to supplement the main house water system, for a garden, trees etc..., I'll probably end up near one of the mountain chains in a higher elevation.

My place was at 6500 ft. elevation.. saw high temps at 105F, and lowest temp was -30F(!). The book will get written if and when it is meant to be. I’m living my next book right now, in a similar vein. Working title: “Life and Death in the Oasis Valley”.  It is promising to eclipse my New Mexico experience! Best of luck to you, and please keep us updated on your journey.

Kyle Hayward wrote:
Great to hear from someone there now, how close are you to Abiquiu? I love that area.

Hope you get your house done soon, I checked your website and there's some great reading there, will get into it more later!

Thanks for the rainfall link as well.

I know you're on a mesa but is there slope there for swales etc...?
What are your plans for permaculture there, have you researched any desert fruiting or nut trees?

Hey Kyle,
Thanks for the kind words.
We are well west / southwest of Abiquiu, in the red rock country of the Colorado plateau. Our land is completely sloped (hard pressed to find a 10x10 level area anywhere except maybe on top). We do plan to put in a lot of swales, one-rock dams, etc but just have the tiniest of starts before quitting that to devote 90% to getting the house built. Similar with Johnson Su biodigester. We are building a vermiculture septic and will have plantings in the drainfield and test water quality quarterly to determine what to plant, and we are also plumbed for greywater reuse, ao will be recycling 100% of our water. We got a Healthy Soils grant for 10,000 for biochar kiln and equipment to help with water collection, plantings and swales, compost distribution, etc... but turned it down because of the house!! Maybe next year... We hope to plant Navajo peaches and Nanking cherries among other things. We also have a greenhouse. SFCC has a great Controlled Environment Ag program dedicated to outreach; a great resource for efforts in that direction.