The Lost Farming Community

i'm the rockhopper as i was driving down a remote dirt road in the arizona desert i came across something very intriguing [Music] so i pulled in last night to camp then i had a look around the area and realized that even though i was in the middle of the desert there once was a little community out here of farmers in this small section of desert nature has taken back what rightfully belongs to her so i discovered these canals last night and then found that there were miles and miles of them around abandoned defunct deteriorating canals you can see where old fence lines once were it looks like there were once a lot of fences around here and this is a vast area a line of old railroad ties standing like monuments on easter island i wonder if this region was once full of citrus groves the land was disturbed and altered allowing invasive tamarisk to gain a foothold and eventually take over hard to imagine now it looks like people once lived out here and this was their house [Music] [Music] behind the house what's left of an old refrigerator i explore further and find concrete slabs and more items [Music] [Music] that's a lot of leftover barbed wire i'm wondering what these were they look like discs from farm equipment there are several slabs out here it looks like there was once a cluster of structures out here another slab maybe this was a well or something to do with irrigation looks like something from an oven i'm not sure what this was lots of broken glass and bits of metal out here there was once electricity out here no doubt to run the irrigation pumps and supply electric to the homes as evidenced by these large transformers let's have a look at this electrical conductor ge hey you know this thing must be old made in usa they don't make anything in the usa anymore there's several of these irrigation wells throughout this area and this one's inhabited by bees and i've got a bee buzzing around my head so i gotta get out of here they do have killer bees in this region looks like this was a holding pool for the water here's what's left of a crumbling decaying canal yeah mile after mile of these canals in the middle of nowhere here's what's left of an electrical box irrigation piping i don't know if you can read that jane and bowler maybe lane and bowler where once there was a massive irrigation project now there is a tamarisk forest very thick i might add yes very thick it looks like building these canals was quite a project back in the day and took a lot of effort for more than a century men have conjured up ideas of how to make the desert bloom but the desert does bloom it just does so in its own way [Music] maybe we should allow the desert to be the desert that it is and quit trying to alter it to suit human needs [Music] you can't see me i am blending i am at one with my surroundings how can you see me i am so well [Music] camouflaged quick wild edible moment this stuff right here this is called lamb's quarter you can eat it raw but it's really good when it's steamed and has some butter on it it tastes kind of like spinach and it's a little bit richer than spinach and it has even more nutrients than spinach pretty good stuff apparently in the mid-90s all of this was under water and that spelled the end of the farming in the region the slender dirt track that remains today must have once been a main road judging by the rusting cattle guards so even though the road i was driving was called citrus valley road this place probably never actually had citrus so right here it shows an unnamed road on the gps here's a look at the unnamed road there is no road but 25 years ago there may have been a road here and it probably followed along the canal that's just right over there even the survey markers here are deteriorating elevation 602 feet 1973. i was surprised to find it out here several years ago i happened upon another set of canals out in the arizona desert i looked down and i saw something i picked it up and it was a penny with 1910 on it that's two years older than the state of arizona that was a pretty amazing find couldn't believe it been sitting out there for over a hundred years [Music] like i always say you never know what you're gonna find in the desert if you don't have a four-wheel drive uh you might not want to come out here [Music] so yeah it's basically just a dirt track that's overgrown rocky goes through washes uh dusty [Music] steep at times and narrow [Music] yeah kind of steep sometimes rocky gravely crumbly [Music] slow going and you gotta go back out the same way you came in [Music] the rockhopper road report rocky and bouncy i hope you enjoyed exploring the lost farming community in the arizona desert you keep on subscribing and i'll keep taking you to remote and little known regions such as this but right now it's time to head off on the next adventure until next time this is a rockhopper i'll see you again [Music] you