Swales

I have a bit of really dedicating to research. When I get in the mood to learn about something, I really commit.

Today on a local Facebook gardening group, someone posted a video which linked to a cool page about "greening the desert". Basically, at one point, huge swales were built in the Sonoran desert (where I live!) and one of them has become an oasis.

Being who I am, I went in to hard core research mode. I found the coolest swale guide! It even includes a list of saline tolerant plants!

As you can probably tell, this is a big deal to me. Living in the desert is hard. Growing in the desert is hard. Raising livestock in the desert is pretty impractical, to be completely honest.

We have a few problems that are unique to living in the desert, besides just the lack of rain. We get about 10 inches of rain a year. Let that sink in. Now, getting so little rain means 1. our soil is very salty and 2. our dirt is hard packed and water just runs off (erosion!) without really absorbing and redepositing in our water table.

So what's a swale? Well, the easiest way I can explain it is: A swale is a trench (filled with organic matter) with a berm (full of plants of varying root depths) beside it. The swale is supposed to help catch water and allow it to seep in to the water table and prevent run off and the berm with plants helps to prevent erosion as the water sinks down. Trees are planted nearby to help prevent evaporation while the water is still filtering into the ground. The swale helps water the plants that grow along the berm (further inhibiting erosion by helping to establish strong root systems) as well as helping water the trees. Beyond this, it helps create a fertile area for plants to grow and improves the local water table. This is all great. Modern agriculture is rough on the land, but by creating swales and  by planting  in the berms, perhaps it can help the desert thrive? 

So I did more research. Swales are actually pretty highly recommended regardless of annual rainfall, but swales in the desert need to be built differently because we do not have steady rain year around, but instead intermittent flash flooding over about 3 months.

I've reached out to a few local homesteading groups in the hopes that some have first hand experience. As we're hoping to find a property with a well (or install one after the fact), it'll be really important to manage our water table efficiently. I can't think of anything worse than running out of water in the desert.

Homestead Lifestyle Plan

It occurred to me the other day, that I've yet to really say what my homestead plans are.

This always makes me laugh!

My goal is to eventually go 100% off grid. I may be dreaming, given that I live in the desert and finding lots with wells are rare at best, so I may need to accept that I'll be on grid for at least water.

By 2020 (that seems a long ways away, doesn't it?), I want to provide 80% of my family's food. I'm not going to grow my own wheat or grind my own flour, but I'd like to provide 95% of our meat and 99% of our vegetables.

Step One: Buy a house and plant a garden. Seems obvious, right?
Step Two: Procure meat rabbits.

New Zealand meat rabbits!

Why meat rabbits? Well, John doesn't care for beef or pork (or dark meat for that matter). I don't know what's wrong with him. Anyway, that means we eat a lot of chicken breasts. Chicken is great, but I've heard it can be tricky to butcher and prepare correctly. My sister has had a few hens that have become dinner. She says that it didn't go well. One stank, the other two were dry and grisly and eventually went to the dogs. Meat rabbits on the other hand are all white meat and typically taste like chicken.

John is worried that he won't be able to kill the rabbits because he raised a bunny as a kid. I can respect that. Rabbits are small enough I could easily kill and clean one myself. My sister raises pigs and she said I could have all the pig fat I'd like to make ground rabbit in exchange for some meat. Whoo! Everything tastes better with some pig fat. We recently started deep frying in bacon grease. It's so good. It adds a richness to fried chicken that makes it even more satisfying. It makes my mouth water thinking about it.

I've found a woman in a nearby town who has offered to teach me how to kill and butcher rabbits in exchange for crochet lessons! I also found a butcher nearby who can get me rabbit meat. I'm planning on breading and deep frying some of it and turning the rest into shredded meat for enchiladas.

I'm not at all worried that I won't like it. I'm not picky. If prepared right, anything can taste good. John is a different story... I hope that preparing it in a way that imitates his favorite chicken recipes will make him enjoy it.

In addition to delicious rabbit meat, we'll get rabbit hide which I can tan to make moccasins, trim crafted items, line pockets, and make blankets. I want to avoid wasting as much as possible.

Step Three: Chickens.
My sister loves her chickens. I love her chickens. They're sweet, smart, and friendly. Although she's has trouble getting her chickens to taste good once cooked, her chickens are really layers, not fryers. I want layers. I'll be happy to try cooking one if I have too many, but my real goal is to keep them for their eggs.

Step Four: Dairy Goats!

My sweet mother-in-law-to-be has offered to buy my a dairy goat! I'm hoping it will be a wedding present. I want Nubian goats.

Look at that face!

Nubian goats are great because they're good milk producers and decent meat producers. Originally I had been leaning toward Nigerian Dwarfs but then I realized that I'd have to do something with the bucks...and they aren't worth feeding for meat. With bucks being about 150 pounds full grown, killing two a year should keep us rolling in meat (in addition to rabbit). John is even more skeptical  about eating goat (it's supposed to taste like a slightly sweeter beef), but he's more than happy to help me clean and dress goats. The good thing about keeping larger goats is they can hang out with the dogs. Big goats=safer goats when it comes to dogs. Plus Nubians are supposed to be smart and child friendly! We're very iffy on how to most humanely kill them. John says a guillotine sounds like a good idea (most people advocate slicing the throat) as a gun has the possibility of not killing it immediately, damaging the meat (I want to save the neck!), or missing completely and injuring another animal/window/etc. I'm not sure how we'll explain having a guillotine on the homestead though.

Along the same lines of the rabbits, I want to not waste the goats. The hide will likely be turned in to jackets, boots, gloves, etc. I've never tried organ meat, but I have a friend who loves liver and can either teach me how to cook it, or I can always gift it to her. "Merry Christmas! Have some goat livers!"