This picture from June, 2004 shows Tomas, our stucco guy, catching some stucco on the East Veranda from his brother-in-law as his two sons observe.
Welcome to Beth and Paul McKnight's
Arizona Home Page!
NEW! BUFFALO ISLAND RANCH IS FOR SALE
Splendid Isolation - 36 Acre Solar Powered Ranch for Sale - $245,995. Ideal for those wanting a retreat to ensure safety in case civilization suffers a breakdown. Also ideal for someone into green concepts who values isolation and can work from home.
36.52 fully fenced high desert acres in Cochise County, Southeast Arizona with well, solar and wind power, unfinished 2500 sq. ft. house with 3500 sq. ft. under roof, 15x24 auxiliary building, 6 DSL-capable telephone lines, 2 Honda generators for times when the sun and the wind are not putting out. Nearest neighbor ¾ mile.
With solar power you need to live on an energy budget. We run the lights, the ceiling fans, the TV, and the computers on our energy budget. The stove, the grill, the three tankless instant-on water heaters, and the refrigerator and freezer are propane powered. There is a wood-burning fireplace along with several propane wall heaters. The house features 6-inch exterior walls for energy conservation and the auxiliary building with its 10-inch foam and concrete walls and viga pole ceiling can be used as an office or guest house.
The owners have used no herbicides, pesticides, or poisons of any kind on the property.
Located within a few miles of one of the campsites of the 1540 Coronado expedition (see www.chichilticali.com ), the land lies directly in the seasonal pre-1880 migratory path of the Chiricahua Apaches between the Dragoon Mountains and the Chiricahua Mountains, which was also the vicinity of Geronimo’s rampages until 1886.
This residence is in the lower right corner of Arizona at 4360 feet elevation where both the summers and winters are relatively mild. It is about 40 miles north of Mexico and 40 miles west of New Mexico.
The master bath and the kitchen are unfinished so you can do them to your taste and not have to undo choices someone else has made. With 29 windows and 8 exterior doors, the house is light and airy with high ceilings and an open floor plan. It is aligned for passive solar heat collection in the winter.
Contact us using the links below and we will put you in touch wih our realtor.
And now, back to our web site as it existed before we added this new information...
This web site, like our ranch, is perpetually under construction. Beth and Paul will be telling the story of our move to Arizona and our efforts to turn 40 acres of high desert land into a ranch and a home.
An Introduction to what Paul and Beth are Doing in the SE Arizona High Desert.
In January of 1999 we purchased 38.52 acres of property in Cochise County, which is located in the Southeast corner of Arizona. Our land is located in an area called "Sunizona", a developer's name that Beth really hates, but unfortunately we're stuck with it :-( . The property is at an elevation of approximately 4300 feet in what is called high desert, in the middle of the Sulphur Springs Valley, which is a valley approximately 30 miles wide and 100 miles long. The valley is bordered on the East by the Chiricahua Mountains and on the West by the Dragoon Mountains. This is a very historic area of the "Old West", the home of the Chiricahua Apaches, led by Cochise and then Geronimo. We're fond of commenting that if we had settled here in the 1860s-1880s, we would have been killed by marauding Apache bands. Our land was once part of the original Chiricahua Apache Reservation before the Chiricahua Apaches were moved to the San Carlos Reservation, then to Florida and finally to Fort Sill, Oklahoma.
When we purchased our land, it was wild bare desert, and overgrazed by cattle (Arizona has open-range laws, which mean cattle can go anywhere they are not fenced out). It is 1 ¼ miles south off a State Highway, and the south end of the property is ¼ of a mile from what are called the Square Top Hills. To the North we can see the Dos Cabezas Mountains, and as we've said before, we can see the Chiricahuas to the East and the Dragoons to the West. These mountain views make for some gorgeous sunrises, sunsets, and moonrises.
We both wanted to live "off the grid", using solar and wind-power for all our needs. We like the idea of using renewable non-polluting resources, and not being dependent upon some power company. The closest power lines are ¾ of a mile away, so it was not a difficult decision to make. Either pay the power company an astronomical sum of money to bring power lines to us (to the tune of $30,000 per mile in 1999; now in 2003 it's been raised to $50,000/mile), and then be dependent on them and have a regular power bill, or spend that money more wisely and invest in a renewable power system, leaving us free of power-outages and monthly bills. So, that is what we did.
Our well is completely solar powered, using 4 solar panels installed on a sun-tracking device, which are connected to the solar submersible well pump. The pump produces about 1 ½ gallons per minute during peak sun hours, and the water goes directly into our above-ground 1000 gallon holding tank. The pump is almost silent, only producing a soft "whirr" while it is in operation.
2002 Well Update: During the monsoon season, which traditionally runs from July 4 through the first or second week of September, our solar well pump was struck by lightning. To our disappointment and dismay, the company from which we originally purchased the pump no longer carried that type of pump and we were unable to find it elsewhere. As we were in a hurry to get water again, we had Gary Ingle, our neighbor, friend, local well driller and all-around good guy, come over and install a regular electric pump. We purchased a Honda gasoline-powered generator which we now run every 2-3 days to fill our 1000 gallon water tank. We do intend to revert back to a solar-powered well as soon as our electric one needs replacing, but that will be several years from now. We also lost a fax machine, modem and telephone to lightning in the same summer. OUCH! Expensive monsoon season for us!
Our power-system consists of a total of 8 solar panels mounted on 2 sun-trackers and then connected to a Trace power inverter system which converts the power to regular household current. There are 8 batteries which store the power. We also have an Air 403 wind turbine generator (windmill), which produces extra power for us during our rare non-sunny days. Luckily there is a lot of wind in this valley. We also have a propane-powered Honda back-up generator for use if our batteries run low.
2002 Solar panel update: Since the 4 solar panels at the well pump were no longer being used by the pump, Paul dismantled the panels and tracking system and moved them over to where the panels for the house are located. He set it all back up and connected those panels to the inverter system which powers the house. We also had one extra panel which we had used for powering our travel trailer and purchased another (our inverter system requires that they be used in pairs), both of which Paul mounted onto a wooden support facing south and connected to the inverter system. An instant 75% solar power increase by adding those 6 panels!
Of course we are on a limited power-budget, but don't notice too much difference. We try and minimize our power usage; for example we switched to laptop computers from desktop computers, we use low wattage compact fluorescent light bulbs, and tend to not use appliances that take lots of power (or use them rarely). We have a propane-powered chest freezer and our clothes washing machine is electric, but is a very low power and water-consumption model. We don't have a clothes dryer, but who needs one in Arizona? The sun dries our clothing in minutes in the summer. Beth, for some strange reason, really enjoys hanging the clothes out to dry on the line - they smell so fresh and nice when they're dry.
We are currently in the process of building our house, having moved into it from a 32 foot camper we lived in before we got the walls up for the house. Paul is doing most of the work, with occasional help from our friend Michael, who has stopped by several times on his year-long trip across the country, Beth, and a few other friends and neighbors.
To see pictures and read more about our progress, please click on the various links below. Enjoy, and thanks for visiting our page!
The Trip from Virginia to Arizona
Animals Seen On or Around the Land
Plants Seen On or Around the Land
The Construction of the Utility Building (also known as the Las Vigas building)
The Construction of the ranch house:
NEW! Some of Paul's Favorite Arizona Pictures.
NEW! We belong to the Sunsites Gem and Mineral Club. We take field trips..
NEW! The Story of Big Mike Noonan's Death at the Hands of Apaches Near Our Land.
Paul McKnight
or
Beth McKnight
Paul retired from his commodity futures brokerage on July 31, 2003. See his other web page.
Beth works part time as the Office Manager/Bookkeeper in the office of an educational software company.
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