What do I need to know about North Eastern AZ

[elx144]

We drove from Winslow through Holbrook, Snowflake, Taylor, and into Show Low. Holbrook had run down buildings with not much town but as you drive south on 77 it turns from desert into land with small trees. Snowflake is a small town with real trees and a nice park that the kids played at. In the winter there should be inches of snow. In that same elevation there's a couple other towns east and west. Land is ~$500/acre.

My kids have been home schooled since Covid shut down my oldest sons kindergarden.

Show Low has health care.

There's a Walmart and hardware stores in Snowflake/Taylor

4. I don't know yet. Since April we've lived in our RV full time and have water/sewer/electricity/laundry provided by the RV parks as we travel. When there's a Costco we fill up a 5cf freezer with meat.

5. I'm not making any quick decisions. We can go find an RV park in the area and stay for half a year or longer just to check everything out.

[elx144]

I want to do regenerative grazing. If there's any grass growing there it should work. You get an electric fence and make a half acre paddock to mob graze the cattle on. Then once or twice a day you have to move the paddock. Chickens come in after the cows and pick through their cow patties to help spread them around, but it also feeds the chickens. The more cows in that small paddock the better, but they have to keep being moved or the land gets destroyed. The pressure from the cows and their manure builds up the soil.

You can run goats, sheep, or pigs in a different rotation because they eat different parts of the grass stem. So smaller acreage can be more productive if you're willing to keep moving the livestock.

[Dan_Eastvale]

Show Low
They Showed em High

[stormvet]

There are still injun attacks up there, be sure and circle your wagons…

Best of luck OP, hope it works out for you and your family.

[elx144]

Show Low
They Showed em High

I'm more worried about the other aliens but I hear they're not as bad in the northern parts of AZ.

[Doheny]

There are still injun attacks up there, be sure and circle your wagons?

Best of luck OP, hope it works out for you and your family.

Best post.

Ditto?best of luck to you OP. Let us know what you decide and how things progress

[bbodybill]

Pretty sunset/sunrise :-)

We drove from Winslow through Holbrook, Snowflake, Taylor, and into Show Low. Holbrook had run down buildings with not much town but as you drive south on 77 it turns from desert into land with small trees. Snowflake is a small town with real trees and a nice park that the kids played at. In the winter there should be inches of snow. In that same elevation there's a couple other towns east and west. Land is ~$500/acre.

My kids have been home schooled since Covid shut down my oldest sons kindergarden.

Show Low has health care.

There's a Walmart and hardware stores in Snowflake/Taylor

4. I don't know yet. Since April we've lived in our RV full time and have water/sewer/electricity/laundry provided by the RV parks as we travel. When there's a Costco we fill up a 5cf freezer with meat.

5. I'm not making any quick decisions. We can go find an RV park in the area and stay for half a year or longer just to check everything out.

https://www.survivalrealty.com/listings/spacious-home-adjoins-public-land-mountain-views/

[elx144]

https://www.survivalrealty.com/listi...ountain-views/

Too much house for me, but that shows the type of land we're looking for pretty well. I'm thinking there's a sweet spot between the desert and the forest.

[elx144]

Someone else has the same idea as me. It's 1,200+ acres broken into 2 acre lots designed for sustainable off grid living.

http://www.coslorcove.com/

I need 40 acres minimum for what I want to do, but it's good to see someone else will be in the area.

[WOODY2]

I want to do regenerative grazing. If there's any grass growing there it should work. You get an electric fence and make a half acre paddock to mob graze the cattle on. Then once or twice a day you have to move the paddock. Chickens come in after the cows and pick through their cow patties to help spread them around, but it also feeds the chickens. The more cows in that small paddock the better, but they have to keep being moved or the land gets destroyed. The pressure from the cows and their manure builds up the soil.

You can run goats, sheep, or pigs in a different rotation because they eat different parts of the grass stem. So smaller acreage can be more productive if you're willing to keep moving the livestock.

It's more like 1/2 a cow on a pasture that size.

[sigstroker]

Too much house for me, but that shows the type of land we're looking for pretty well. I'm thinking there's a sweet spot between the desert and the forest.

It's really funny, up around that area you can see a transition between forest to desert. It's like God placed a glass wall right on the edge of the forest and 3 feet beyond it is desert.

[elx144]

It's more like 1/2 a cow on a pasture that size.

I've spent the last five or six years studying temporary electric fences. It's emulating the natural predator environment where animals had to mob together for protection and keep moving as pressure was put on the herd. They can only eat the grass down so far before they have to move, which allows it to grow back faster. The dung and urine also regenerate the soil faster. But it's constant work, you can't keep them on the same grass for over 24 hours without causing long term damage. Without doing that I've heard 60 acres per cow would be required.

The cows also have to be raised to feed on grass only. They need to be out there doing their job and not get lazy with subsidized feed.

[elx144]

We did it. Got 40 acres with a well already on it. My wife and two boys have spent the past few years at an RV park getting to know people and figuring out the good areas. A piece of land came up for sale, we called the agent and she already had an offer but we put in ours anyway. Ours was less than asking, but a few days later she came back and said the other buyer backed out and our offer was accepted.

It was on me to get the well tested and the seller paid to have the septic system tested. There's no power so I got a 220V generator and wired it up to the 3 wire controller that was already there. It took about 5 minutes but water came out. I had to dig up a rusty pipe that was making the water red, but once that was fixed the water tested good. The septic guy dumped a bunch of water into the system and it held overnight, then he marked the tank and leach field.

We closed last week, it's ours.

My friend is giving us a bunch of goats and my wife's friend sold us a Great Pyrenees puppy. We'll probably get about 200 chickens for meat and eggs. There's pens already in place for livestock. I figure we saved about $60k on the well and septic and another $10k on fencing. I can get a complete 20KW solar system for $10K, a 2,500 gallon water tank for $1/gallon, and we're good to go. The family selling the puppies have a similar setup and are living completely off grid, but prices on solar equipment have come down quite a bit since they got theirs.

The best part is, we're not that far out of town. So my boys can still play sports and my wife can get what she needs without having to drive for an hour. There's even a gym less than 10 minutes from our land.

[WOODY2]

It's more like 1/2 a cow on a pasture that size.

IMHO with 25 yrs in cow calf operations that terrain would be a stretch for 1 cow on 25 acres, but that's just my .02.

[elx144]

IMHO with 25 yrs in cow calf operations that terrain would be a stretch for 1 cow on 25 acres, but that's just my .02.

What type of beefs did you raise?

I'm gonna set up one of those electric net fences and stick goats in it to be moved once or twice a day. That should clear up all the less desirable forage. Then follow them with about 100 chickens to fertilize the soil good. We'll see what the land looks like after a year. There's grass that grows good in the dryer climate. They were native at one point but over grazing has caused the tumble weeds to take over. This area was all sheep ranches 100 years ago and they ate every blade of grass then pulled up the roots. If I deal with the weeds then plant a little seed I'm hoping to be able to feed about 10 good beef cows on 1/2 acre per day. Not tomorrow, but sometime in the future.

There's this idea with regenerative grazing that putting more pressure in a small area and moving the stock daily ends up building better soil. I wanna see for myself.

The milking goats will still get a nice paddock with alfalfa fed to them.

There's a neighboring 40 acres with four Corriente's on it but they're pretty haggard looking.