Hey Crew!
You know us as the Dog House Pirate Crew. A couple of sailors with two dogs, a 28-foot sailboat, and 10 acres of Sonoran Desert we’re slowly turning into something we’re calling the Pirate Oasis.
We bought the land outright. No loans, no outside help. Ten acres of vacant desert with big plans to build a self-sustaining regenerative homestead from the ground up where we’re reusing water, living off the land, the whole thing. Because in the Sonoran Desert, water is everything, and we had a plan for every drop.
Then the county had other ideas.
Before we could build anything the way we intended, they required us to install a conventional septic system first. Which, if you’re trying to build a homestead designed to reuse every scarce resource you have, is a frustrating place to start. We didn’t want a septic system. We wanted to use that water. But here we are… hands tied and forced to do what we didn’t want to do.
So the land sits waiting. And we came to the Midwest.
We came out here for a wedding but the family needed us, so we came early and stayed longer. Nearly two months total. And since we were here anyway, we figured we’d earn money for our building materials before we head back to the land.
We’ve been on my partner’s family farm fixing tractors, hauling, painting, building garden beds, and doing the kind of unglamorous work that doesn’t make it onto anyone’s highlight reel. We actually love the farm itself. There’s always something to do and something to fix, and that part feels familiar.
The surrounding area though? Not for us. The roads are narrow one-lane county roads where people tail you for going the speed limit… which, for the record, we will always do because we’ve had more near-miss deer collisions than we can count. One of them didn’t miss. That was a day I almost called it quits and drove home.
There’s nowhere to pull over and just take in a view, the mosquitos are relentless, and we have genuinely never seen so many people dedicate so much of their lives to lawn maintenance. We don’t get it. We probably never will.
But I guess this is what funding a dream actually looks like sometimes. It’s not always open water and desert sunsets. Sometimes it’s fixing a tractor in a place that stresses you out so you can get back to building the life you actually want.
And that life is close.
In a few weeks we hit the road and roadtrip back to the west coast to Dog House. We have projects waiting, things to fix up, and open water calling.
Stick around for what’s next. It gets good. If you want to show your support, subscribe to our email list below or buy us a coffee.
Just finding us? Chapter 1 is a good place to start.
Fair winds and following seas~
💜 Dog House Pirates
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