Hello all,
Iām Christine from northern AZ near Meadview, between Lake Mead and Grand Canyon West.
Started with permaculture after finding a partner here on IC.org in 2009. Bought the adjoining lot in 2014 and started all over because the gophers had invaded us and killed all our summer crops and fruit trees. And started building little āhousesā (casitas) with cob / adobe.
We started hosting WWOOFers and HelpXers and had so much fun!
In 2016 my partner moved out, plants really werenāt his thing and he also wasnāt interested in my many projects, trying to bring organic food to Meadview, running the gardening club, etc. All those time and money drains, but Iām an empath and thatās my original brain damage.
Got sued by debt buyer Midland Funding in 2012 for Capital One accounts I defaulted on in 2008 when I got totally wiped out. Fought them, prevailed, sued them, overturned 2 federal judges involved in my case on appeal in 2018 and subsequently suffered major brain damage resulting in working memory loss when very stressed in late 2019 due to the litigation stress. LONG story ā¦
Thanks to Covid shutdowns, unemployment and then an inheritance Iām alive today. Had the money for a ton of supplements and the time to self-diagnose, kind of.
A couple months ago I finally quit hosting WWOOFers, too many bad experiences. Despite my brain damage, I still think giant circles around the helpers Iāve had this last year. I donāt know why just about everybody I hosted had ADHD, or was an alcoholic, or just quit meth, or farm surfers, and I even had the first ER run last year with a guy who got so drunk he fell into a hole and then couldnāt work for 2 weeks, and as soon as he was ready to work again the three FRIENDS went camping and he sexually assaulted them when they were all drunk again (early 20s).
I canāt do this anymore, have way too much to do to babysit so-called āhelpers.ā And canāt take the constant stress, no-shows, people leaving because the weather is bad, etc.
Speaking of the weather, I lived here for 22 years and itās unreal how cold, hot, dry and windy it is now. Just about NO rain for about two years until July 2021, when we got a couple inches in several storms and the back of my hoophouse blew out.
The upside is that I know now which plants survive two years without rain, and sadly, itās NOT the native prickley pear cacti.
So I bought another two acres of virgin desert last year about a mile from my place for a demonstration site, show people how NOT to clear from corner to corner and plant lots of native willows, catsclaw, and many other bushes and trees that can make it through a drought without supplemental irrigation once established. Not forever of course, but I know they made it through two years.
Just a few weeks ago I lightly cleared for a driveway, got a pad for a self-contained boat and the hoophouse Iāll move over. Itāll function as a placeholder for a home and Iāll āproperlyā landscape around it for maximum wind protection and appropriate shade ā passive solar.
Quite a few of the willow and fig cuttings seem to grow. Maybe eventually Iāll get to putting up a adobe / cob building there and Iād like Mohave Country to allow code exceptions as they do in other Arizona counties so people can experiment and build their own homes with āunapprovedā materials.
Being 63 years old and getting only $266 social security, Iām trying to figure out how to continue living. I manage a vacation rental and itās so stressful having to deal with Airbnb and their lack of support.
Iām so invested here, FINALLY the orchard garden is doing so well, incredibly, thereās still a lot of fruit on the trees despite the many wind storms.
So I donāt see myself moving. But itās so hard living here, Qanon headquarters, with the F Biden and Go Brandon flags. Census data shows that we have quite a few democrats here, but theyāre all AFRAID, have been bullied into submission.
I didnāt even get on Facebook until 2016 and found that a local candidate for sheriff wanted all Muslims deported. Mohave County is militia country and former gardening friends even drove to the border to āprotect usā from the immigrants. I despise social media, but since nobody else stands up to the alt right ā¦ I tend to do what nobody else does. Occasionally. Since I got kicked out of most local groups because they donāt want to hear about old people dying and rotting, and if their pets eat them they are killed too. It terrifies me to think about that.
I also filed a lawsuit against everyone involved in my healthcare in 2019/2020, but am aware that thereās no way Iāll prevail. Just need to find out WHY our nonprofit hospital and doctors are incapable of providing effective healthcare. Watched a friend commit suicide because his wife couldnāt get the home healthcare prescription signed in FOUR months. She had polio, was almost 80, and couldnāt pick him up anymore. He fell a lot.
I was in my early 40s when I move here, and not to socialize with old people. But through the gardening club I made many friends, it was more like social services, and then lost almost all of them to horrific healthcare.
Iāve learned so much about health and brains in recent years and Iām terrified of getting dementia. I know itās preventable and even reversible, but despite living among all these retirees, I have been unable to find a single person interested in learning and DOING what it takes to stay well.
Having been by myself for a couple of months I just love how much I get done! Itās nice to have privacy.
Iād like to live in a loosely organized ācommunityā with a commercial kitchen and maybe a common living room for activities, but with individual homes or campers or whatever. Share the water hauler (well is about 1.5 miles from my place), a big truck for outings, organize shopping trips (60 miles to Kingman, 100 to Vegas), order from coops, etc. Conserve resources. And it would be so cool to know that someone will take over my place and take care of my dogs and the plants when I die or just canāt do it anymore.
Itās so beautiful here in the Joshua Tree desert, but between the many mean people here and the awful climate, I canāt really ask anyone to move here.
So maybe I do have to consider finally finishing the inside of my house and selling. But where would I go? And to let the orchard garden die, thatās just so sad. Am in adding the final touches, lots of medicals and flowers.
Havenāt had a lot of time to look, but I havenāt seen anything yet that would work for me. I donāt want to make more friends whoāll end up getting sick because they eat crap, drink way too much, etc.
Donāt want to live in or near a city and I think all the rural areas are filling up with Qanon types.
So I donāt know ā¦