Desert Clean

 

The character Jackson Bentley, in Lawrence of Arabia, asks "What is it, Major Lawrence, that attracts you, personally, to the desert? 

T.E. Lawrence replies, "It's clean."

Lawrence's desert is not this desert.

 

In July, 2021, my wife's uncle Sid died and upon his death his four acre property, over the mountains, just outside of Tucson, AZ, was transferred to us. We sat with the idea for a year, and then, in late 2022, we began the clean out of 50 years of accumulated things. That first trip was to package and store what was to be saved —and a fifteen yard dumpster was filled with trash. We also widened the drive by cutting back cactus that had been encroaching for years.

In February of 2024, I returned, solo, to sort through the remaining objects in the casita, laundry-storage building, two metal sheds and clear out all that remained in the trailer. There was little precious left to find, by then, so that what was extracted was the detritus of a human life —the mattresses, sofas, shelving, VCR tapes, CDs, clothing, and, well, you know the rest as our lives are filled with the same. The trailer had extensive leaks in the roof and was penetrated by pack rats in the two and one half years since Sid's death. Although I had never seen a rat, here, I also had never seen so much feces. 

My first task, in 2024, was to clear the dead trees and plants in front of the trailer. Sid took to watering species near his dwelling, so that they suffered or died without his attention. More than that, I knew space would be needed to bring in trucks to clear the trailer contents and, later, to demolish the structures. 

Fortunately the location of dead plants and Cholla facilitated a circle drive allowing large vehicles to turn around. In the center of this new circular drive, I cleared rat nest materials from under non-native agave, pruned dead wood from Palo Verde trees, and moved Prickly Pear to open areas just off the driveway. This work was completed manually with a battery operated reciprocating saw and coarse-toothed wood blades, a shovel, and where necessary, an excavator —mostly for removing the olive tree, Cholla, Prickly Pear, and to grade the circle after ripping it up. After all that was done, I purchased a permit to burn off the giant pile of brush collected from the work zone.

Prickly Pear, in green, were moved while Cholla and dead Olive was sent to the composter.

Cleared cactus went into a 15yd dump trailer to be composted, but dry brush was burned.

 

Once the land clearing was completed, I called a junk hauler. If ever you are in the position to choose between clearing out a home yourself, with dumpsters, or bringing in a crew with a dumpster-truck, leaving price out of the equation, I suggest using the crew. Although I could have purchased a 40yd dumpster for the price of one 20yd truck and crew, the speed of their accomplishment made up for the difference of volume. Clearing 525 square feet of casita-storage room, 950 square feet of trailer, two storage sheds and a variety of objects occupying the landscape required six 20yd trucks and four to six guys over eight hours to haul away. 

My job was to quickly move through boxes and objects, setting aside anything that may have had sentimental or other value. The crew was respectful and often asked if I wanted something that seemed, to them, out of the ordinary. We also established a scrap metal pile as I contemplated scrapping for dollars in the future. Later I decided the work, for the price metals are bringing in, was not worth the effort, however I did bring in a scrapper to haul away the metals for the demolition phase of the project.

From the air, landscape imagery belies the lushness of the Sonoran Desert.

 

The structures to be demolished and removed.

The trailer as I left it in late February, 2024.

Before I left the region, I brought in a couple of companies to get a sense for the price of demolition of two sheds, the casita-storage, and the trailer and addition. The project would require the cutting of dead or nearly dead Mesquite trees and the live, non-native Olive tree —both require more water than this region's precipitation and alluvial deposit will provide. It would require capping of the septic, cutting of electrical service, a permitting process, moving of bricks, pavers, cinder block, stones, and sparing without injury the large Saguaro you can see in the photo, below. This, of course, while demolishing all the buildings. 

The quotes were between 15 and 20 thousand dollars. I know enough about construction to have guessed this range, but still I wanted to see it written. The following day I left Tucson for Colorado (another story) to pick up my wife from the airport (from China, yet another story), afterward heading back to Minnesota as the nursery season (another story!) was ramping up early due to excessive warmth. 

 

The trailer in March 2025

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Part II: Desert Demo