Desert Oasis Makeover: Grass, Gazebo & Family Prep!

In this episode of Occupy the Land, we transform our Arizona desert homestead into a welcoming holiday retreat! Donna leads the charge by laying used artificial turf (sourced affordably from a replaced sports field) over a leveled, sifted area beside the bus, creating a soft, green “lawn” for barefoot comfort around the pool and future outdoor kitchen. Ernie anchors a sturdy steel gazebo with concrete footers to withstand desert winds, envisioning shaded relaxation and family gatherings. With daytime temps in the 80s and nights in the 50s, we prep for East Coast visitors arriving for Christmas, adding barbecue setups and ironing outdoors under perfect weather—proof that off-grid living can be both rugged and inviting!

Transcript:

Hi. Welcome to occupy the land. Occupied land. Dawn, what we’re doing is we wanted to test this out because we have these little, little, mister buddy heaters that use these small, you know, like these here, these little green things. But they go after one evening or a day or two and then, you know, but it’s a lot cheaper to refill these.

Now, it used to be a thing or years ago they’d come up. People have been angled something out of these tanks, but now they got it, thing called a fuel keg. And what it does is you just take this off. And you turn it on. We’ve already done this one. And you line it up to where that little probe goes right there.

Screw it on. Open it, hit that boom. Fills this up within like 60s. And it’s a lot cheaper. So we just tried it for first time. Seems like it’s working really well and might even get another one of those we can swap out. But we ordered a bigger mister buddy guy. I think it’s something ridiculous, like 20,000 BTU or something, and they’re still small.

It’s got a blower and that kind of stuff, but it’s just for the shipping containers, you know, it’s going to get really cold here in another month or so. It’s really nice. Now, by the time the sun hits, that means in the summer it’s going to be unbearable. So we got to deal with that. We use evaporative cooling for that, probably.

But, this is seems like it’s going to be a really cool thing. I was looking forward to getting this because we can start using these to heat areas or when we’re working, or even if you just want to sit outside and be warm. I have to start a fire. That kind of stuff. You’re limited by the fuel and this makes it a lot cheaper.

It’s called the fuel keg. Just say it.

Well, we’re heading to town, taking Donna’s monster truck, 37 inch tires on this thing. And it is. I mean, look at this. The bottom of the truck. My knees. I mean, this is like a thing. So what we’re going to do is this will be the first time Donna and I have taken this truck out together. And I got to drive it around the land one lap because I’m not allowed.

You know, everybody’s like, no, everything goes to crap and bad punches. It, you know? So anyway, so it’s Donna’s truck. I got the Ford pickup, so that does me. But we need it for things like this. We’re going to go get two. Tank fulls of water at the agricultural well that we use. And then we’re going to go get 44 gallons more of diesel fuel.

And we have 116 gallons fuel cell up there. And you open this and it’s got well, when we open it, it’s got like a regular pump in there. You put a little, 12 volt battery on it or hook it to your car or tractor or whatever, and it transfers it about as fast as a pump at, you know, the gas station.

So we have these two fuel cells. We take this one to go get it, and then we transfer it into that. Then we got to put it in the bus. Now the bus has 165 gallon tank there, you know. So we’re, you know, just as we’re stocking up on all our fuel and water and all that kind of stuff.

So we’re going to be every time we take a trip, we’ll take the diesel SEL and go ahead. And now we got everything else filled, you know, the tractor and the equipment and the fuel cell and everything. But now we need to do the bus. So then we’ll fill up the bus, then fill this up and we’ll have diesel for like, ever.

And then, these two tanks, we have probably. How many of these do we got? Like eight or something. And, so we distribute these around the property and we just keep filling them up, and, that way Donna has. I’ll have a tank down by the solar panel in the workshop, and then Donna will have it over by her.

Garden over there. That’s her garden. She’s getting ready to put the covering on everything for her chicken coop. And then we got our second shipping container over there, and you’ll see there’s a rack there. I’m putting the solar panels up. I just got in and all this stuff. And the reason we got to go to town and we’ll just go do a bunch of stuff is because Fedex delivered a bunch of shelving and so on for the second shipping container.

But, they say that the Post Postal Service won’t accept it or general delivery at our post office. And I think he said it’s because of the contract they had. Now. Just quit it. United States Postal Service doesn’t like Fedex of something. I don’t care anyway, so we got to go get it. So we’re going to go drive into town, their distribution center in Phoenix and get that.

And, and if I take long enough to do the video, I won’t have to help Donna. Donna knows how I did. She. She’s got it situated. I didn’t know that both of these would fit in with the fuel cell. Yeah, come on in. You know, and put it. You know, lengthwise this way. I didn’t know they had a longer and shorter side, I guess so, yeah.

Okay. So that’s why this truck, you know, is for weird. I mean, we have pickups to do it, but I didn’t like it, you know? So this thing is, you know, getting her done. Now, we probably would need. We use five gallon tanks. We probably have, I don’t know, 20, 30 gallons worth of tanks for powering this. Now, the Ranger and the ATV over there are gasoline.

The only other gasoline, I think is the wood chipper. Yeah, the wood chipper. And that. Now the extra generator. Backup generator we have there is we just use propane instead of gasoline, jerk around with that, and then that one is diesel. So we’re it looks like we’re going to upgrade our, battery system. It’s just charge controllers in the inverter and doing two to get two legs of two 3000 for six hours.

We use a lot of power and. Yeah, yeah, screw it. I got, 220 inverter that will, you know, make a lot last wiring and do that. And I can use that system for other stuff around the property. And I have a really nice system. So we’re going to go ahead and do that because it’s going to be a year or two before we actually start putting it into a house or whatever.

Anyway. Then after we get all this done, we take all it into all these tanks there. You can get them out and then it’s trash time because we’ve been getting a lot of stuff, but we wanted to wait until after this weekend because we got a bunch more shelves and so on. Eight big shells are go in to that green shipping container back there.

And then I got run power from the power station of the other one to there and, get going. There’s so many things to do. But you know, this next week, after we get all this kind of set up in the workshop where I can start doing the integration of the dome, into the stem walls here, then we’re going to go ahead and get back to finish in here and start actually closing that in.

But there’s just been so much work to get to that point so that we could do it. It’s nice weather. I mean, now here in Arizona, this is just awesome. You know, we have, you know, next, next week in a little over a week from now, we get to see a cloud again. Looks like it might be some clouds.

It’s like this all the time, you know, in Arizona set during the monsoons and so on. It’s just blue until they start striping the skies. And it’s just yeah, I don’t know what it is and I don’t care what they say, but it’s not normal. This is normal. And then it’s not. I’m 64 years old and I’m telling you, not normal.

They’re trying to normalize whatever the heck is going in the air. I’m not saying what it is, but I know it ain’t normal. I know that they just say it. All right, well, we’re going on this trip, and, let me give you a little highlights as we, you know, do and pick up and get. And it’ll just be a day of Don and I going out and being productive, but just hanging together.

We might go get something to eat and stuff to pace.

Well, this is what farms looked like in Arizona for that. Well, this is a lay down yard where the agricultural pump is down. On the other side of that tree is where we normally get it, but they, are wet enough that they turn that one off. So we go back to where, you know, the farm is the lay down yard, and they’re there’s Donna, and she just hooked it up to this tank, and it just I don’t know, I guess it gravity feeds, but it goes pretty fast.

So this is how we’re getting our water today. We’re going to be doing both these tanks here. We got 44 gallons of diesel here. Donna’s you know super truck be able to pull it. So we’ve been shopping all day getting stuff done. So this is the finally the end. From here we go back to the property, which is way over there.

Well, we put it to a battery and it has this hose that goes into the diesel fuel tank, and it’s 44 gallons and 165 gallons. So we’re third quarter of the way with this one tank. And we got to fill this up for the love bus.

Okay, now, this trailer that we got, like five years ago, when we knew we were going to do the Love Bus Liberty tour, and now we’re going to be moving on to the land. You know, everything that I can’t live without. It went in there. So a lot of stuff we can live without. But, there’s a lot of tools, a lot of things you feel all kinds of stuff that’s in there, you know, that we decided to keep a lot of the tools and stuff is already out in the shipping container, but, it has a door.

Double door on this side has a storage underneath the overhang over there, which could be a nice bedroom, a kitchen here, but Donna says not so. She don’t want to, but, eventually this may be turned into a, you know, a, you know, visitor dwelling or something like that. Then, of course, it has the back doors. It has another side door and another door.

So I’m just like, what it and another door. You know, this thing is awesome, you know? And it’s just full of stuff. I mean, we got there been trying to unpack and so on. So what we did is we need to get shelving in this one so that we could have, it organized, you know, get that. But a lot of this and we put it in the shell.

So we have the side roll up door. What I’m planning is, I think I’m going to take my stamp press that makes these struts for the dome and the table, and a cut off blade for that and everything, and put that in here because I don’t use it that much, and it’ll free up a lot of space in the, other workshop container.

Now, between these two containers is where the big 30, 60, 22 building is going to go. And, just fit in between these two and it goes like another 20ft back now to open into that building. That’s why I had this done, a roll up door. Now this is the shelves that we did. These shelves were pep. I was really impressed with how much it was only $132 for these big ass shelves.

So we, got a bunch. So now we have storage, storage, storage, storage, storage short. Now, Donna probably will get bins to put them in totes, but I wanted to get the stuff out here first, so I could see it. You know, I need to see it. I want to touchy feely it, and then she can start marking boxes and putting it in and so on.

But these are very sturdy. I like the engineering of them. They’re easy to put together. We did probably in about four hours. Got all eight of these done. And yeah it is. This is awesome. Now I built wood shelving kind of did it. And I think it’s about the same amount of money. I mean wood is gazillion dollars now.

So it wasn’t much more that I was willing to do all the work when I could. Just half a day, I can put them together. So we’ll put a table back here or something and, some storage at the end here, you know, stand up stuff. But we get the full use all the way up. So I’m, I’m really happy with this.

So we’re going to get going on that. And this is one of the things we had to do. We’re not going to do the building until we get enclosed on the the dome home build. You know, we’re getting close there. And so on. Then we’ll go ahead and start worried about doing the building here. But I want to get the building done to put a lot of our equipment and the attachments for the tractor and be able to park the tractor in and get it now out of the summer sun, because here it’s not roster really when that much.

Yeah. When it kind of gets kind of windy. But it’s not rain and rust and that kind of stuff you got to worry about. It’s ultraviolet, you know? And, so there’s Donna. She cleaned it up. Now we’re deciding we’re probably going to keep a lot of this cardboard. It becomes very useful to take the tape off and stuff, but it becomes useful for composting.

You know, just we just throw it all in the compost pile and kind of strip out all plastic tape and crap, but, it’s good for controlling weeds and stuff, too. And different garden areas and everything. And even if it just gets wet and rots, you know what, I care? It’s a good compost. So we’re going to go ahead and start saving up because we got a bunch of box there.

We got enough cardboard to make cardboard logs to last us for a freaking month anyway. So are you happy with your shells, Donna? And what are you going to do with the stuff over here? What’s your plan? Just get it out of there for now and just put it on these shelves, and I’ll have to go get bins and, you know, mark everything and organize it.

Get rid of stuff, whatever. Go through it. How long is that going to take? I don’t know, when are you going to get started on pulling stuff out? Well, today. Today I vote today. Now, I will leave Donna alone to do all that. She do whatever. As long as I can just see it. I’ll organize the stuff that I want the way I want, because the main thing is that, tomorrow I’m going to spend all day.

I got a occupied the land Agora market. Presentation, for the nonconformist series of anarcho poco. And, I have to have that done. And within less than a week. So I want to get working on that. And then, where our Philosophy of Liberty project with, you know, bunch of different organizations, primarily James Corbett and I are really focusing on that, and that’s going to be a thing.

We’ll be talking more about that in the future. But it’s really an activist thing that’s just about the morality of freedom, of leave me alone ism, proper rule of government. You own yourself that you know, these basic things that I think generations have forgot or never even you sure as heck aren’t getting it in government schools, you know?

Do they even read 1984 Fahrenheit 451 or Brave New World, or, you know, read the Constitution or Bill of rights or anything? I it’s it’s amazing. And we noticed it. There’s a lot of stories, but I just want to make sure you guys know we’re just staying at it. You know, out here. You know, that’s one thing you can see.

Let me show you this grass grows. I mean, in the desert here. I mean, it’s just starts. If I get one more rain, even a little bit. You know, this grass will just get stupid. And, the cows are starting to come back and, you know, mess with my stuff. So I’m just like, there we go. I have to put up a fence one of these days.

But the, they haven’t been bothering us too much. But when this gets up high enough and a lot of the foliage, I don’t want to mean it. You know? So we’re going to fence it off. And that’s what all of these railroad ties are for. Now, this is only, probably about half of them. The rest of them I’ve already distributed around the fence line what we’re going to be doing it.

It’s so many projects. It’s just me, Donna and a tractor. We’re going to have a, build party. I’m sure. Probably, after the holidays, you know, in the spring. And, we’ll we’ll have some people out here kind of get us going on a bunch of little projects, you know, a little check dams and, you know, some digging.

I want to have, you know, a bunch of family and kids and teenagers and everything out here during the holidays. And all they want to do is, you know, build something, dig something, do something. So we’re going to put them in the tractor and get certified on that. And they’ll they’ll have plenty to do is not too much.

They can mess up in our sand pond just getting dirt out. So we’re going to be having some fun. We’ll share some of that with you. Pace.

I had to go into town yesterday to pick up a bunch of packages somewhere at the post office and some of my daughter’s house, and it pretty much filled up the trailer and the back of the truck. And then I also got this some artificial turf. It’s used. It was, piece that was in Las Vegas, used once.

And, I got a really good price on it. We’re going to put it on the other side of the bus, which is the opening where you come out. Right now it’s just sort of, I don’t know, storage, and I don’t really use it for anything, but, so we’re going to put it over there and kind of make it nice.

Have some, family coming out back from back east for Christmas, and we’d like to make it at least some on ice for them to be out here.

This is the side of the bus that we’re going to kind of clean up a little bit and make it more, presentable and usable and a nice place to be. So Ernie’s going to come in and bring his tractor and level that out and put that artificial turf that I got. It’s in the back of the trailer over there.

We’ll put it out over here and make it a nice place that we can relax and enjoy. We do have some people coming out for the holidays. Coming from back east. So it really would be nice for them to have a nice place to sit outside and enjoy this beautiful weather.

So today we’re doing a little bit of maintenance on the tractor. Every so often you have two, three, three desserts. So they move freely and you’ll find. It’s pretty quick but it takes longer to clean out all of this and to fill them up.

We’re going to be putting this artificial grass, and we got another one over there. And, but it had rocks under there from us putting some gravel and stuff on here so the bus wouldn’t get stuck. And, we wanted to get rid of all the rocks. So we raked all that out as much as we could, and then, we sifted some dirt and got down to some nice sand and dirt.

So it’ll be nice to walk on once we do that. And then we’ll put some fine sand, you know, on the grass and get down in it and it’ll hold it down and make it more stable. But, you know, this is nice. Donna’s got a gazebo thing she’s putting over there. We’re going to redo the fireplace and make it nice out here, you know, for, holidays and so on.

But that’s greener. That’s over there. You know, that is why we, need the trommel now. We the expanded metal that we had for that was for the trommel. But I was able to, like, 20 minutes put together that, you know, months ago and do a little project. But this is what the troubles for. We would done this.

How long did this take us about? You think? A couple hours. Yeah, a couple of hours to do this, but, we could have done it in a couple of minutes, but, you know. Yeah, that’s a project. It’s going to be a few weeks before I can get to that. And that’s what the workshop is for. And I gotta put concrete pad and finish to solar, and then we’ll start welding and plasma cutting barrels and making the trommel so we can do exactly this.

Now, the gravel that we had, we’ve been dumping it over there. We’re going to be putting concrete around the dome. And, you know, this would be nice, but that’s why we’re doing this, is so that we can have a nice place to walk on, make it to the pool, and, you know, the gazebo there and our outdoor kitchen and everything.

Donna wanted to do this real bad, so we did it. And this is how and the just time and pressure. Time and pressure.

Well, I have a day’s work and we got some nice grass. We. To build the gazebo and then put that over on that lighter green stuff. But we got to peel that back. And that tube that you see over there, we’re going to do for pads to bolt it down to because it’s a nice steel gazebo. It’s semi-permanent.

And, we’ll do that. And then we got our barbecue and the cook station and the outdoor kitchen and stuff that we’ll kind of set. We got a pin this down and overlap it and trim it with the pool and all that. We got. Planning to do, but shows you what’s up. That’ll work for the holidays.

Donna sifting the soil to make the concrete, to put the footers in for her gazebo. She’s doing it all herself because she’s the woman. I’m editing video and getting the clay out of this so that we get better concrete.

Donna setting up, you know, the iron. And your choices are. I have to go outside to iron. Now. We have a wider spot in the bus where the, bathroom is that we can set it up, but. Damn. So the question is, I have to go outside or I get to go outside, and I mean, it’s great out here.

So she’s. You want to go ahead? I go to a meeting tonight. It’s Bill of Rights Day, December 15th. So she’s going to be setting that up. She gets to go outside and iron clothes. Can’t wait.

Desert Oasis Makeover: Grass, Gazebo & Family Prep!https://t.co/8rggWAd7yH

— occupytheland (@occupy_the_land) December 19, 2025