We have been fortunate enough to meet our neighbors on both sides of us and they are both wonderful people! Not only are they wonderful people but they share the very same values, hopes, goals and vision as us. We feel incredibly blessed by that! One of our neighbors, Ana and Cory, are doing wonders on their 40 acres they called Cielito Lindo. Its name perfectly describes it as it has the most beautiful view of the mountains and gorgeous sky. They are so inspiring with all the work they are doing over there! And they are doing it simple with recycled/reclaimed material from local resources to get free or low cost materials. I love their imagination and vision for what they want on their homestead. Truly motivational! Ana is a fabulous hair stylist during the week and a homesteader on the weekends. Actually, I really need to start seeing her about my hair instead of me doing it myself all the time! I can totally relate to her glam up during the week but getting her hands dirty on the weekends. We homestead ladies can clean up nice too! It was great for them to show me around and let me see all the hard work they’ve been doing. She even let me sit on their tractor and get a feel for how it works! That was awesome Ana thanks again!

Here are Anas own words on what they are doing and what their goals are for their homestead Cielito Lindo!

“Cory and I bought the property a year ago. Total fixer upper, 40 acres, 2 mobile homes with no value, and a well. Our #1 goal is to make something from nothing. So we try real hard to repurpose, reuse and recycle our project materials. We hope to build an Earthship one day so alot of our projects are prep work for our ultimate retirement home.

Our 1st project was a backyard tirewall. I’m filling the cracks with adobe. In the meantime we have the tire wall buried with dirt to reduce fire danger. Tires are easy to come by just ask a tire seller!

Then we built a bee habitat. My bees come next week. Tire wall enclosure with a fence enclosure inside. The outer wall provides shelter from the elements and the inner fence keeps critters out. We are also making shade canopies from plastic shopping bags for shade. We built a water tower to hold a 55 gal drum so we have water on site.

My most exciting project is my geothermal greenhouse! This greenhouse uses the earth beneath it to cool it in the summer and keep it from freezing in the winter. So far we’ve dug a great big hole in the ground and we’ve peeled logs we got with a permit from the national forest. We are ready to place posts and the underground pipes😊

We were able to make a deck out of a shed one of my friends tore out. We got the floor decks and enough 2x4s to finish the top!

I’m slowly collecting large liquor bottles, uncrushed soda cans, lumber, fencing, and most anything we can reuse or repurpose. Caring for the planet with a waste not, want not attitude!”

-Ana

Another thing that Im excited to see is their bee pasture. They have planted wildflowers for their bees and thats going to be so beautiful when those flowers grow! Just look at all that space thats going to be for flowers! The tire walls are brilliant and I can’t wait to see the geothermal greenhouse!

Ana and Cory, thank you again for letting me feature Cielito Lindo on this blog. Keep up the great work! I got so many ideas from you both for our own homestead and hope it will inspire others to do the same.

Until next time friends!

-Cristina