Getting started in new mexico

My wife Melissa and I moved from Seattle to cotton city NM ,which is around the Az border off I-10 onto 56 acres. Long story short lis is going crazy cuz of the snakes, lizards, and scorpions that seem to infest this place. I am attempting to build her an Arizona room thats critter proof for her sanity. That being said how do we keep water that falls here, here? hugal berms are one way but is that it? Will the moisture keep the reptiles away? Is there people in this area who are into permaculture we could network with.? Thanks CHEERS

Welcome to the forum.

Sorry about all the wildlife aka critters.

I bet you moved into their space.  Our critters are deer and rattlesnakes.

My suggestion is to get a outside/inside cat.  We did and we have not seen a rattlesnake since she got here.

You asked, how do we keep water that falls here?  Rainwater Catchment.  Look into the work of Brad Lancaster:

https://permies.com/wiki/brad-lancaster

What is an Arizona Room?

Ugh that’s rough. I’m just south of you near Animas and thankfully haven’t had those problems yet. I don’t know whatwill keep them out. Putting up gutter on the structures and directing it into holding tanks works for water collection here.

In my experience, rattlesnakes show up exactly once, and then they realize I live here and I'm 1000x their size, and they never show up again. Lizards that live in my immediate vicinity eventually realize I'm not gonna eat them, and they continue hanging around (but I don't mind because I know they're harmless, they're like pets that I don't have to feed). I haven't seen many scorpions here, but I've read that all scorpion species which live in the continental US are pretty harmless (might be a painful sting but that's all).

I recently learned about an old-school strategy to prevent rodents from getting into a barn, where the whole structure was set on mushroom-shaped foundation blocks. The rodents can't climb up the overhang of the mushroom cap, so they'll never make it in. I don't know if that strategy will work for lizards if they have gecko-type sticky feet, but I would guess it'd be very effective against snakes and scorpions.

Rainwater catchment: keep in mind this depends on what kind of roof you have; some roofs leech/shed material into the water that makes the water yucky.

Scorpions: a friend of mine grew up in the Phoenix area and got bit by a scorpion as a kid, and had to go to the hospital. He wasn't close to death I don't think but it was serious enough for an ambulance trip.

Josh Warfield wrote:In my experience, rattlesnakes show up exactly once, .

That might be true though one year we had about 18 snakes, before getting the cat.  After cat= zero.

Regarding water catchment roofs usually metal is good, though I don't know about all metal roofs.