There and back again... we hope.
I am writing this article and podcasting about it from our RV which is parked in a 49 acre parcel of land in Colorado. By the time you read it, we may very well be back home at the Olympic Peninsula.
How on Earth did we get here? I ask myself. And the answer is that we were offered an adventure we could not refuse.
You may remember that we are presently digging a well for the Shamanshack. You may also be aware that the $20,000 dollar budget we had for it was not enough to get as deep as it turns out we needed to go to get water. Since the drill rig was in place, we asked the well driller to continue another $20,000 and now we are at $45,000 and no sign of water still at 450 ft down. Our next best guesstimate for the depth we need is 150 ft below sea level, which is approximately $20,000 more just for the digging. This is a depth none have gone here before, but is common enough in some areas.
We received 10K in donations from you (THANK YOU), but that still leaves Larry and me 35K short, plus an estimate of another 20K or so to continue digging the well. That’s a total of 65K for the well. We raised some of that with an event, but we are still short to finish drilling. If you feel inspired to participate in the well project, here is a link for donations.
Why is all this relevant to Colorado? Because to raise the rest of the funds, we placed our first home, our liveaboard classic yacht “Ilaria”, for sale. The price we listed her at is 50K, which combined with the 10K we received in donations and the funds we raised with the event, would cover us.
However…
A man from Colorado offered us his land and a partly built Earthship for the Ilaria. Larry thought it was the best idea ever, he’s a jump first, ask questions later kinda guy. At first I thought it was a crazy idea. But the more I looked at it, the more resonant it became. It’s not something I can properly explain, but it has to do with guidance, intuition and a love story.
Regardless, we took the deal and a few weeks later we found ourselves traveling to Colorado to meet the land.
The trip is about 20 hours driving (non-stop), but of course in there we need to sleep, rest, eat, and take our dogs for walks. Yes, we brought Chinook, who you met in another episode, and Tiny, our Anatolian Shepherd, to keep him company and teach him road manners.
It took us two and a half days to get to the land. We towed our RV trailer, which made the trip more comfortable overall and gave us a place to stay on the land while we are here. There's no electricity, water, or shelter.
After the long drive and about an hour before sunset, we found the gate locked. Fortunately the previous owner had given us a key, unfortunately, there were now TWO locks. Apparently there was a dispute with the person who’s land we had to go through to get to the parcel. After texting back and forth, and many NO’s, he came out to open the gate for us.
We figured he was someone who had strong boundaries and had a tough time with the neighbors, and we were right. He’s actually a super nice person, and an excellent neighbor. He has been helping us since. In fact, we consider him a new friend.
We entered the land.
The place was, as we had been warned by the previous owner, a homeless encampment covered in garbage and scattered with destroyed small encampments, with a partially built Earthship castle on it. Technically an Earthship is designed to be self sustainable, and this one can be finished to be that. The partly built Earthship it is shaped like a castle and the walls are made of bagged soil from the land and partly covered in a mud/straw paste. The harsh wind and weather here, unfortunately, is destroying what’s there.
I asked Larry what he thought of it all, he said, “ya, the best need something to do something hunting grounds ever. Need to cover the generator from the rain? There is a fridge for that, already set up to perform that function. Need a shovel? Well, there's a couple, one here and one over there on the other side of the hill. Need a pallet on a sled for later when it snows… yep got that too.”
We took the deal site unseen (besides a quick google earth space photo), and were warned of what we might find. Fair enough. The previous owner is an excellent guy and true to his word.
First order of business was to check out the views. Stunning! Beyond description, amazing.
The next day, we walked the four corners and marked them with crystals. This is a tradition I learned that allows a family or person to energetically delineate a property in order to give it energetic boundaries and also give it specific jobs. This turned out to be a full day job with each border having a unique and singularly challenging aspect to it. One border was being encroached by a neighbors ‘overflow’ of garbage, another had a 30 ft deep gulch, another a 100+ ft mud adobe dune, and another its own miniature mountain. FUN, tired, and extremely satisfied.
On the second day, we went to register the change of ownership for the property at the county clerk, and bought four trees which we picked up on day three.
Our new neighbor volunteered to keep the trees watered while we are away. We are overwhelmed with gratitude.
For Larry and me, trees are a very important part of our lives. And planting trees is one of the first things we do in new land. It feels like the trees have already attracted good support and allies. They are two apple trees (to represent sustenance) and two elm trees for presence, shade and help slowing the winds down.
When we got back, we started cleaning some of the garbage up, and also putting away building materials that had been left exposed outside and were getting damaged. When the job is huge, take small steps, a bag here, a pile there, progress, something big, something small makes the whole thing manageable.
Our initial plan was to stay a couple of days and then return home. But, a couple of days were not enough.
One of the things that struck us both is how radically different this land is to everything we know. It has no trees, no grass, it is dry and clay in nature. Half the parcel is made up of strange gray mounds called “adobes”. They look like gray smooth sand dunes, but the soil is not like sand. It is a bit harder and doesn’t blow in the wind. More like dry dusty clay. The mounds are locally known as “The Dobies”. A quick search on the name told us that the “Adobe Badlands” are a feature of the state of Colorado.
We will tell you more of this adventure on our podcast Driving To The Rez. One of the things we will be discussing in the second hour is the guidance system that led us here and how similar this situation is with three properties we have acquired in the past. There is certainly a pattern here.
Video - There and back again… we hope.