Gila Valley Arizona

The Peyote Foundation is based in Southern Arizona, in the heart of the Sonoran Desert. Our facility is located just off the Gila River, and lies within the strip of green riparian zone where mesquite, acacia, cottonwood, and other trees grow abundantly. We are surrounded by the much drier desert zone and saguaro stands which surround the river valley in all directions. Summer temperatures rise to 100 deg. F. in the summer, though it is usually several degrees cooler in the tree zone where our homes are. Winter can bring cool nights and mornings, sometimes below 20 deg.

Most tender plants require considerable winter protection, though in the past, peyote has overwintered unprotected well. Ideally, clear poly or glass covering the plants suffices in warding off any potentially damaging chills.

This is the land of the Hohokam, an agricultural and artistic people who flourished (500 b.c. to 1400 a.d.) by means of an irrigated water-system based on the desert rivers. The locally abundant saguaro and mesquite provided nutritious fruit and seed pods. Signs of this former civilization still exist today in the scattered pottery shards and numerous ruins in the area. Unusually long periods of drought may have forced this culture to abandon their river communities, scattering their presence throughout the surrounding region. More recently, this land was inhabited by semi nomadic Apache people, many of whom still live in the area.

Kit Carson and General Stephen Watts Kearny traveled this river valley (in charge of the Mormon Brigade) on their way west. The name of our nearest town, Kearny, is derived from the General and his troops who camped near here. Copper mining and cattle ranching are two of the most influential local industries.

In our return to a gentler lifestyle, we feel The Peyote Foundation to be a positive influence in the local area. We live in two very simple, and what might be politely called "rustic" homes. We have constructed a shadehouse (greenhouse in winter), and plan on erecting more permanent growing structures in the future. We look forward to becoming more active gardeners, as time and resources allow, thereby producing good portions of our food at home.

Your support is very important during these early stages of the life of the Foundation. Our lifestyle is simple, but our overhead continues to rise. We need to maintain our lease on the 10 acre facility, and in the process, finish paying for the two houses. Maintenance on these older homes can be very regular, and sometimes, expensive. Because of our working dream of maintaining a safe refuge for the sacrament peyote, we have given up a considerable amount of privacy, income, and societal security, among other things. We feel positive however, that our work is not in vain, and that those people of common interests, will appear in due time, to help us, help them, honor the medicine.