Desert Water Wins: Stucco Check Dams & Dome Prep!
In this episode of Occupy the Land, we tackle monsoon
In this episode of Occupy the Land, we take advantage of a tractor maintenance break to transform our shipping container into a weatherproof workshop, framing it with two-by-threes and planning pegboard and shelving for tools like plasma cutters and welders. We explore our desert water management with a new sand filter for the sand pond, capturing monsoon runoff to green the landscape, as evidenced by thriving desert plants. We also maintain our solar-powered setup with 14kW batteries and plan additional panels for the workshop. Join us as we balance workshop upgrades, water experiments, and off-grid resilience in the Arizona heat!
Transcript: 00:00:48:25 – 00:01:10:06
Welcome to occupy the land. Occupy the land, dawg. What we’re doing now. We have our tractors in for maintenance for a few days this week, and it gave us an opportunity to work on the shipping container. And shipping container is going to be our workshop. Now the dome 30ft dome workshop that we have a temporary one, which is great.
00:01:10:07 – 00:01:36:10
I like working in the ground and they have like a semi-circle at the side between a shipping container and a storage trailer, because I like having things in the round is very ergonomic, but because of the winds out here, the winds have just beat the temporary tarp that we had on the top and it would leak. So we’re like, yeah, we’re going to have to have a secure storage area that’s dry and out of the wind and rain.
00:01:36:13 – 00:01:57:11
So that’s why we got the shipping container. So what we did is we needed to have a lot of the stuff that is a work bench area that’ll be back here. I’ll take particle board or I mean a pegboard back here. We’ll have shelving here about 12ft out. So this would be a lot of storage. And we’ll work area.
00:01:57:13 – 00:02:33:17
And then we have we will have a lot of metal working on our plasma cutter and welder and different things to hammer out, press and a lot of stuff will be in the shipping container. Container. Because the real purpose for the 30ft slab that we had in the very center of the property was the community area. We’re going to have our fireplace and a rocket stove, heated bench seating, pizza oven, outdoor kitchen thing, and then we have another area and we’re doing our first test dome, and then we’ll have a bathroom and shower area that we’ll be working on.
00:02:33:20 – 00:03:04:04
Well, it’s 103 out today and that means it’s 100 and gazillion in here. So it’s going to go once I understand it. And then I’ll show you progression videos of where we’re getting on the shows. You kind of see what we’re doing works better. Maybe I don’t want to penetrate the walls or anything. We can do a little tack welds and brackets and so on, but we’re getting away with, you know, being able to, use two by three.
00:03:04:04 – 00:03:33:12
Used to do the framing to get the shelving to not penetrate the shell. So that’s what we’re doing now. It’s really hot. And it’s the end of September. I mean, it’s September 29th or Sunday 30th and it is still, you know, Arizona hot. So we’re going to go ahead and keep working on this today. And we have to wrap it up because the heat affects the cameras and the phones and so on that at any time they’ll go out.
00:03:33:12 – 00:04:02:18
Well, guys, we got a bunch more shipment of goodies. One of the things I wanted to point out, we got PEX tubing here, blue and red and whatever. But the one thing that I really want to emphasize is this little sand filter. We’re going to try that out. The reason is, is because a sand filter, as we do the, sand pond out here, we’re going to have a lot of water.
00:04:02:21 – 00:04:30:07
Yes. So we had a little bit of rain last week, and it was a lot of water that went in to where we’re directing it back here on the, land at the far corner of the lowest part. So all of the washes and everything that we have. Once they fill up and they kind of soak into the ground, we have our ordering holes that we did that is going to really have an impact on the growth here when it’s dry.
00:04:30:14 – 00:04:50:06
You know, these plants creosote, chaparral what are you going to call it. And we have some trees and so on. They get brown. And he had dry. And sometimes, you know, they go long enough they’ll die. But generally what happens is when it rains, man, they just go green. They start, you know, greening up quite a bit.
00:04:50:09 – 00:05:13:02
It’s just been a few days and it’s already starting. But as we do these little washes here, we back these up at the end. So they fill up. And you know I’ve been taking the ATV’s in here, but these fill up and then it soaks into the ground. I bet if I just dug here a little bit you’ll see what I’m talking about.
00:05:13:04 – 00:05:37:28
Yep. There it is. It’s wet, you know. So this. Yeah, man, I make a dirt clod out of that so it gets wet. Very, you know, not too far down. Well, what happens is, if you make holes, we auger in and then it soaks in, it really creates a sponge as that fills up and it starts to get saturated, then it starts flooding over.
00:05:38:01 – 00:05:59:08
And I’ve been building up. You can see here that as I dig this down, I’m also making a berm. Now the water comes up to this and then it builds up and it goes back over to the washes. And it kind of goes in over here. Now I have several of these all over the land. So it’s a lot of it is soaking in.
00:05:59:10 – 00:06:32:24
Now what I’ve been doing is digging down in the far corner here where the overflow, once it gets up to height, it’ll just continue on its regular drain up here. So you just kind of wet the, Where this low part is over here is where the water tank will go. And that’s one of the boxes that we got, is we have a, well, pump, one of those long, like, three inch diameter, probably, you know, 44in long that goes down in to the well casing and then pumps it up.
00:06:32:27 – 00:06:59:08
But we’re just going to put one of those into the big tank that we have down here. Now this is where we’re going to have, a big water tank probably about a 3000 as I get down. Now, what you’re seeing here, there’s cows there over here drinking or doing or, you know, whatever they’re doing. But, this is the low part in this where they’ve been here is where we’re probably going to put the, water tank.
00:06:59:14 – 00:07:22:15
Now. It’ll just be just above the sand that will be on top eventually. This is just going to be all filled with sand so that you don’t have the sunlight causing algae. And evaporation and all that stuff. So because you have it filled with sand, one third of that volume is water. When you do that, it displaces only two thirds.
00:07:22:22 – 00:07:44:28
So as deep as I am here, that is above my head a foot or two up there. So I’m already down 7 or 8ft. How’s it going to go down? Probably at least ten feet. Then we put the tank there and we start digging this out. So you can see now we’re you know, this is why I’m bringing the trailer down and taking it, scooping up the soil and so on.
00:07:45:01 – 00:07:52:27
Now, one of the things that was interesting is you can see how much of this is sand and gravel.
00:07:52:29 – 00:08:20:15
And that’s why we have the trauma. We can separate this soil into clay, sand, wash sand, fine sand for mortar and so on. And then of course, gravel. And these are the biggest rocks that we got. We just don’t have that many big rocks. This is like, oh my God, a whopping rock. You know I have rocks. But you know, we can go get them, but they’re not on our land, so you can see where that flow over there.
00:08:20:15 – 00:08:38:23
When it gets that height, that’s where the water. And we’ll have probably a cement area over there channel and so on. As it goes to that white pole over there, that’s where the corner of the land is. And it continues on with the regular drainage that it had for a wash over there. So that’s why we did. This is the corner of the property.
00:08:38:25 – 00:09:00:06
Everything from the far corner to here is about a drop of about ten feet. And it’ll come down here. We’ll have it seep into that tank, which is to be drilled with holes and have, you know, filter around it. It just goes into it. Then we’ll pump it out and then we’ll have, filters for it. Now the sand filter, we’re just testing that, you know, that’s a small one.
00:09:00:11 – 00:09:33:22
We had sand filters for our pools and so on before. But the reason we have that is because there’s a lot of open areas here that I can just clear, you know, a 50 by 50, 100 by 100 area and put plastic and that plastic and you kind of berm it up, put, you know, kind of have it go over a berm and then put rocks and kind of hold it down, maybe some blocks out in the middle of it, so doesn’t blow away and it gets one of these rains like this, that is hundreds and hundreds if not thousands of gallons.
00:09:33:24 – 00:09:54:28
And all we have to do is have it just flow down into a, a low area, put a little, sump pump in there and just pump it into IBC totes or other tanks or bladders, whatever. We have plenty of water and that would be for a lot of things. Now if we do the sand filter, take it from that low area.
00:09:55:00 – 00:10:16:11
We can take the sediment out. Now, if it was just on the plastic, you probably wouldn’t have, you know, much anything on it. But, if we’re taking it from the washes, then we’re going to have to filter it and to use that for really anything. Oh, you didn’t really have to filter unless we wanted to use it for the pool water or, for drinking or bathing or something.
00:10:16:13 – 00:10:40:03
But I wanted to play with that sand filter. It was a small one. It wasn’t expensive, and I just wanted to see what we can do with it. Now, we’ve been developing the drainage and so on, and, hopefully we have some pictures and video I’ll include in this. Now show you what it looks like after it rains, but it was only it kind of off and on a little bit.
00:10:40:03 – 00:10:59:23
But, you know, it gets intense for 15, 20 minutes a boom, it’s a flow. And so what we did is we took and I just piled up, you know, these piles here as I was doing the roads and so on, I just went ahead and kind of tractor and put this up because I did want it to back up and it did.
00:10:59:26 – 00:11:18:29
So this is why you’ll see these plants will get green, green, green, green, green. They get a little bit of water and maybe be a going. So here is where we will put a lot of the bigger trees. You know, at the end of where it’s been backed up and flooded here. But I can just walk all these way.
00:11:18:29 – 00:11:43:15
I got probably, I don’t know, quite a bit. And it could easily be half a mile, three quarters of a mile, a mile of these washes that I’ve done. So I can direct the water and when it gets flowing, it does pretty well because I do my best whenever I go back over this stuff to get it flat, so it doesn’t make a rut, you know, which it will, you know, when it gets a flowing.
00:11:43:17 – 00:12:05:06
Now, this is the, building pad for our main home. This is where I’m taking a lot of the dirt that I’m taking out of the sand pond and putting it here. Now, you’ll see, I got a low area over there. The the water comes from that direction, and I have to build this up at least a couple of feet so that it doesn’t flood here.
00:12:05:06 – 00:12:27:24
It’ll go to a wash on the other side. And the wash. I just walked up this way. So it kind of splits and goes around the main home area. And this is I haven’t really showed you this that much, but these are the views. So you breathe in a bug. This is the view that Donna wants. You know, she really likes this wide vista thing here.
00:12:27:26 – 00:12:53:01
So she wants a lot like her kitchen and so on. The windows go in this way. And then that’s why, you know, we put all this stuff out of sight here. But I really like this mountain range here. This is just awesome.
00:12:53:04 – 00:13:12:08
It’s just beautiful out here. So we wanted to make sure that you kind of got an idea. We’ve been really busy and it’s been really hot. You know, it’s still well above 100 degrees here. And it’s the end of September, but it hasn’t been cool. Nights gets down in the low 70s and so on. So that kind of cools it off.
00:13:12:08 – 00:13:33:02
And you get the middle of the day. You’re out working drinking a lot of water anyway. So it’s not that bad, but it’s going to start getting cooler. And when it does but the days get shorter. So you’ll run out of light. But this is, what we’re doing. You can see, like here, I have to right here’s, you know, the holes when we drill these with the auger.
00:13:33:05 – 00:13:53:25
And I flatten that out. When it rained, it backed up all these holes out here in the field. It just sucked it up. And I’m going. Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about. So then we put the, build this up because this is what’s going to block all this water that goes back there. Now I’m going to. Yeah.
00:13:53:25 – 00:14:01:12
I wanted to show you. Well, all right, let me turn it off and I’ll start again. I want to show you guys something.
00:14:01:12 – 00:14:31:21
I don’t know if you can make it out, but the water temperature is 78 now. We have all of this water that we have for keeping us cool in the summer and get our core temperature down, but, it’s September 27th. It’s run, you know, said into September, and we have all this water that is. What do we do with it?
00:14:31:24 – 00:14:52:29
Now it’s going to eventually get done to likes swimming when it’s only above 80. So it’s starting to get to the point where and I do, you know, Japanese baths, man, I just come out here naked and I just dip the water. You know, I have Donna soap here and so on. I just take this, pour it over myself, lather up, rinse it off.
00:14:53:02 – 00:15:22:17
Boom. I’m done in about 30s. But as it starts to get colder, we’re going to go ahead and have to do something with this water. So we have a cover, a black tarp, covering for this thing and use it as backup water because there’s a lot of water here. But I got the sand filter so that we could start to process a lot of the water that rains down on the land so that we can use it for filling the pool and back up water and agriculture and all that kind of stuff.
00:15:22:20 – 00:15:46:11
We haven’t really got into agriculture yet because, we’re busy, you know, a building. So we’re needed to develop where the dome is over there. We want to have, like, a community area, but it’s over there. You know, we’d like to get this over here set up, and this is the height that we’re at now. We’ve been showing you some of the building and so on.
00:15:46:11 – 00:16:11:04
It’s just that we’ve been so busy this week, and when we get back this next week, we have to start getting to some other levels. And we had to wait on, the outside electrical outlets that go in. Now, these internal ones will get covered, you know, just like this one right there. So this is where the outlets go and, how they’re done.
00:16:11:04 – 00:16:30:21
And then those little blocks that you see to the side, you just pull those out. So it makes it easier for you to run the room cabling and so on. But we wanted to have outside now where you see this green here, that means that’s where we’re going to put an outside outlet. But we had to get weatherproof ones and all that kind of stuff.
00:16:30:24 – 00:17:05:21
And over here on the construction site, I’m going to go ahead and trim up this tree and make this, outdoor shower and bathroom. And even in the winter months, we have, propane fired, heated on demand showers that we can do. And we really enjoy that just coming out, especially when you’re working and all sweaty and so on, because it’s still over 100 degrees, is just now going to start getting under 100 at the in into September here in Arizona just, you know, way it is.
00:17:05:28 – 00:17:33:18
So but then it’s really nice weather all the way till May. So it’s it just starts getting warm in about May and then you got to go through like four months of oh my God. But we got a lot of stuff done. So it’s going to start going quickly. We’re going to probably I don’t know how many more layers were going to go up before we start deciding on putting a dome on top and integrating it into the doorframes and the windows and so on.
00:17:33:21 – 00:17:55:27
But, a lot of experimentation is going on here, and we’re getting better at laying the bags and how they’re filled and, tamped down and compressed. So we’re going to start getting on that pretty quick. We had a break, with having the tractor in for maintenance. Hopefully can picked that up today. And we’re going to be getting back to the build.
00:17:55:27 – 00:18:19:29
But I’ve been taking the time to do a lot of work on the land. And it’s 18 acres. And it’s just the big thing is the shipping container out there. I wanted to get the workshop and we showed you a little bit about that, but I just enjoy it out here. It’s just so nice to be able to just come out, do some work, get things done.
00:18:20:01 – 00:18:40:12
But now we got to do maintenance. Now that we have, you know, the opportunity we’re probably going to get another backup generator. We have the generator over here. It’s a diesel generator or 7.5kW that’s really been doing it for us ever since we got to. But for years. And this thing’s getting tired. I mean, it’s just now we’re abusing it.
00:18:40:19 – 00:19:02:13
So what we want to do is go ahead and get another backup generator. It’s that, you know, one is none, two is one thing. And you want to make sure that you have the capability of keeping power. And then we have, you know, different equipment that we’re doing in here. Now this is the inverters. Now each one is 3000.
00:19:02:13 – 00:19:23:15
So we got 6000W. We have one runs to one side of the circuit breaker panel. And then the other one goes to the other side so we can separate, a lot of our power between, you know, air conditioners and cooler and coffeemakers and all that kind of stuff. And we run everything off of these two batteries.
00:19:23:15 – 00:19:54:27
Now, the both of these are 5.1kW. And, they’ve been working great. Now, we started off with four battle boards. Now we down to two. One of them went bad. You got to do them in pairs. So we have about I think about probably 14kW that we’re running everything on and that’s enough. You know, as long as we charge up with the solar during the day, then we got enough to last us through the night and run the window shaker a little.
00:19:54:29 – 00:20:13:24
Air conditioner that we have in the window in the bedroom. And it does fine. Now, this is the main solar array that we have. Now we have another four of these panels, you know, for the workshop. And then what I’m going to be we have another series of here that was sourced by my son, who’s a company that was going out of business.
00:20:13:24 – 00:20:31:07
He just had a bunch of these and they he just got me a bunch. And we’re going to be putting these on top of the shipping container. So the be the workshop power for that. And we have, you know, much other equipment so on. You know one of these I have this box. It’s just been traveling around and I haven’t even opened it.
00:20:31:15 – 00:20:54:12
I mean, it’s just under here is a, oh, this is the box for the, chipper, but I have another one. I think I got it over in storage. That is a dirty water pump. And what that is, it’s, trash pumped, and it just takes the dirty, muddy water and puts it wherever you want to put it.
00:20:54:18 – 00:21:18:16
Then we got the sand filter. So I’m at the point that I’m going to start experimenting with how clean, you know, without super processing, I can make the water. And then we start capturing all of this rain that comes off of these mountains. And I tell you, we have more than enough water, even with a little bit of rain that we’ve had, we have really starting to get the trees, the green and the green up.
00:21:18:16 – 00:21:46:25
You just slow down the water and all of a sudden you get big green trees. We’re going to start plant more trees, but we’re enjoying ourselves. We wanted to make sure that we’re an inspiration to people. I just did a show with, a crypto guy. That is a lot of the technology that is now going to be able to free us from the man taken over crypto stablecoins, and they’re trying to protect the dollar and a lot of controls.
00:21:46:29 – 00:22:11:16
And the United Kingdom just came up under Starmer announced that you have to as a United Kingdom citizen, you have to have a digital ID. This is how you want to be in society. You have a digital ID and I think that that’s not coming to America means you have not been paying attention. You got to get decentralized.
00:22:11:18 – 00:22:17:04
We’re being the use case. You’re going to hear a lot more about that to pace.
https://www.brighteon.com/59859b53-dd0a-4929-a667-b5eaf99e37c6
https://www.brighteon.com/59859b53-dd0a-4929-a667-b5eaf99e37c6
https://rumble.com/v6zjrle-sustainable-desert-living-workshop-setup-and-water-filters.html
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