This idea of going to live in this desert area is going to be a challenge, no question about it. The results of the soil test were negative for clay, which means a number of things. One, you can't make adobe bricks with the soil on hand. Two, it may be a hazard because sand that gets deep enough will be hard to drive a vehicle upon it. It will get stuck as the wheels sink into the sand. You need wide profile tires, and most likely a 4 wheel drive vehicle. Three, the sand can come loose, especially in high winds. There are high winds in the area. There may be frequent "sandstorms". Four, erosion occurs because of the nature of the sand. Not only from wind, but from rain. The surrounding mountains will send water runoff down with a lot of force that will gouge out huge cracks in the sand. Sometimes, an area can collapse altogether. If this happens near a road, the road is washed out.
That last sentence allows me to segue into the most significant problem is I see for now. You have to be able to transit into and out of the place, or you won't be able to do anything useful at all. If roads gets washed out frequently enough, that will make the job all but impossible. But roads do not have to be washed out to be a problem. You can get stuck into a rut quite easily. I noticed plenty of ruts in the road. You really need a specialized vehicle to deal with these situations. A horse? You have to keep a horse fed, sheltered, and watered. A horse may be OK if you are around all the time. I can't be there all the time, or even much of the time at all.
A four wheeled vehicle for the double duty of working in as a delivery vehicle is an option. I haven't checked that out as of this writing. However, there are other options that I've looked into. There's 4 wheeled ATVs, but these seem to cost a bit more than I would like. Something really cheap like a toy scooter with a 50 cc gasoline motor might do the trick. A "toy scooter"??? Yes, because it is cheap, relatively speaking, and I would only need it for special situations. This one I was looking at has a 20 mile range, it claims. More than enough to get back to town, if that is what I need to do. No place to put cargo, unfortunately. If you get stuck with your big vehicle, you may have to go fetch help to get out. That's too expensive, so it may be wise to take along a scooter if traveling back is not an option. The scooter can get you to town, hopefully, since it has the range.
Besides the roads washing out, the sand may be troublesome when trying to dig holes. I noticed that when taking the soil sample. The problem is that the hole fills in when you take out soil. This means that the hole will cave in. In other words, it won't be stable. That's a problem I will have to solve later when I start upon that task.
Getting shelter up is really important. If getting something up like a double wall to shield from the sun and wind, that would be a big plus. A tarp could go over the top of it, when needed. So, transit and getting a shelter in place are top priorities. Each of these are complicated by the overabundance of sand.
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