1Sphere 1People Homestead

A developing intentional community in SE Arizona divider

Donate?

Yes, philanthropists do exist, and someday we'd like to have too much money and become one of them. Money may not buy happiness, but it can buy good things. But first, let it be known that we're not asking for a dime for ourselves, for any persons, pets, or domestic animals that reside at 1Sphere 1People Homestead. We're not that important and can take care of ourselves in any event. What we would ask anyone with some spare change to do is make a donation to help restore the 14-acre wildlife portion of 1People Acres.

Don't have any spare change? Come as a visitor and volunteer to do some conservation work—reseed, restore, build bird or bat houses, create new habitat.

It would be nice if we could say we're preserving 80% of our land for wildlife, but the truth is that, like most land everywhere else, we have to talk about restoring the land, land that has, in our case, suffered from over 300 years of abuse beginning with the introduction of cattle by the Spaniards. Topsoils that had been thousands of years in the making, that had sponged up the rains and fed perennial streams and rivers over the centuries, has been lost on a scale unimaginable, and with it much else.

On one part of the preserve we've found numerous Indian potsherds indicating the presence of a camp or small village. If an inhabitant of that camp were ported through time to the present, they would no doubt be shocked and saddened by the degradation of the area. The river that flowed and nurtured life year-round—now doesn't. The vegetation—transformed. Animals then common—now rare or extinct.

On the back acreage there is clear evidence for 1-2 feet of soil loss by erosion within the past 100 years. Rains quickly run off the exposed subsoil, taking ever more with it, and few plants can gain a foothold. The previous owner bragged about having had a couple of dozen sheep grazing the property at one point and “not having to feed them” to indicate that the land was “useful.” When we took possession, six horses had the run of the property—also apparently not fed as there was not a blade of grass to be found and they were stripping bark from trees (the remaining mesquite trees not cut down by the prior owner's sons to be sold as firewood for pocket money).

Time may heal all, but here it will take centuries. We have and will continue to assist nature to recover, but that takes more time and effort than money. The big ticket item that we ask money for is an artesian well.

1Sphere 1People Homestead was once the bottom of a Pleistocene lake where hundreds of feet of clay collected. Today, water percolates from the surrounding mountains and makes its way under a huge bowl-shaped layer of clay whose edges are higher than the property itself. A well drilled through this layer, about 600 feet down, allows the water to flow up day after day, year after year. Rain continues to fall in the mountains, water continues to flow from wells in this area and has since 1885 when the first was drilled. Hundreds of wells have been drilled since. There are, of course, limits, but if a million wells were drilled, some would continue to flow.

All of the wells drilled so far, including the one we had drilled, have been to benefit humans, and their domestic plants and animals. There are a few abandoned wells that now serve wildlife, but that was unintended. The world famous (among birdwatchers) St. David Cienega (about a mile to the SW of us) is a tiny visage of the wetlands once common in the area. What we propose is the drilling of possibly the first and only well in the area for the sole purpose of benefiting wildlife. A well drilled at the low spot on the south side of the refuge would flow across the property and form a pond on the north side. Over time this would develop into a rich, diverse habitat. Some 350 species of birds, mostly migratory, depend on the few remaining wetlands along the San Pedro River twice each year.

Adding one more would be a wonderful legacy for any donor(s) making such a gift to countless wild creatures great and small. It would be a gift of giving lasting decades, perhaps even for centuries to come.

Depending on the depth of the well, we're estimating a cost of 12-18K. A pretty good chunk of change, but think about it—what greater good, in the long run, could the price of a car buy?

If you can help, please, whatever you do, don't send us any money. Contact us with your pledge. When we have enough pledge-money, we'll contact you to confirm that your pledge is still current, then we'll create an account to pay the well driller and ask you to make a deposit with whatever oversight may be needed or desired.

Thank you for considering this Water for Life Project, if you are not in a position to help, perhaps you know someone who can or would consider funding a well in their will?

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