- Three Generations of Hot Springs Heritage -

2015

• April- Property sale completed. Construction of access road to the property begins. First trek deep into property shows the property to be rich (and thick!) with trees, vegetation, water and wildlife. Also located an incredible 130' tall Ponderosa Pine with a 14'+ diameter trunk. A google search suggests the tree to be 300 - 400 years old. It's magnificent. 
• May - Access road from CHS highway completed. Camp area leveled. Mini barns constructed on the north east corner. Hired Tim and TJ Weatherly to assist with managing the property...Great help and great friends! Frontage fence and gate erection begins. Construction of access road into the property begins. While sleeping in camp, heard a wild pig squealing for its life...think a mountain lion had pork for dinner...
• June - Construction of access road continues. Temporary bridge build over Deer Creek. A possible natural spring has been located on the north east side of the property. Spring appears very active...and delicious!  Campsite area for guests to use built near the creek (Camp Baxter...lol). Trekked to the back of the property...finally made it. So many animal trails and droppings...imagine they're wondering who the new noisy neighbors are. May have located another spring on the west side of the property. It's rough hiking on this little parcel!
  
• July - Left a game camera on a trail for 6 days...picked up 2 black bears, 4 deer, 2 foxes and a skunk...lol. A deck is being built close to Deer Creek, and a 16' yurt has been ordered. This should make the stays more comfortable for everyone! Found a beautiful 100' Cedar tree this week. It's magnificent. The road now extends about 1/3 of the way into the property. From here it will turn into a hiking trail.
  
• August - Big month! The first of 3 "Galmping" sites is nearly done. A beautiful deck, with natural wood railings from the property, has been completed near Deer Creek. The shell of the yurt for the deck is up and the campsite for it has been outlined with boulders and filled in. Going to be nice! The game camera continues to provide surprises every week. This month, in addition to the usual characters, it picked up a wild pig, mountain lion, coyotes, and something we haven't yet identified....may be a "Fisher Cat". Also videoed our first Bobcats, but we knew those are up there. The blackberries are in full bloom and the black bears are everywhere eating them up! They don't seem too interested in us...although one did gnaw on one of our gas cans! Tim Weatherly and his son TJ are making great progress on the site, and I'm always excited to see what they've accomplished every weekend I get up there!
  
• September - Busy month! The yurt campsite is nearly done (added a picture). Great sandy site with deck, yurt, BBQ, fire pit, picnic table and beautiful Deer Creek running beside. TJ is busy building Adirondack chairs to surround the fire pit. Road is being covered with DG and preparing to take it up the mountain to site two (Star Gazer!). Lots of wildlife all around the camp, as we are now a "green camp" deeper into the woods. Barry the Bear met some of the guests the other night...but Barry was more afraid than Brendan and Mark, and quickly ran off. The game camera continues to capture all kinds of wildlife, and this month a gorgeous Bobcat hammed it up for quite a while. Yurt is partially furnished (nice to finally sleep indoors and on a bed!). October should be busy, with plans underway for a permanent bridge and drilling the well. Architect is busy with our plans for the Star Gazer site on top of the mountain. A shower and bathroom will definitely be nice! The views from the top are amazing!
  
• October - December -  Wow! It's been busy! The yurt site is done. Great "glamping" site. So comfortable, warm and cozy. Plans for a permanent bridge have been approved by the county and we are preparing to start the footings. A road up to the Star Gazer site is in, which makes humping up the mountain mush easier! We will hopefully start construction in February after the bridge and well are completed. After a bear took a swipe out of the yurt, we bear proofed the yurt deck with a "bearacade". Tim and Tj have built some great furniture from our local woods, giving the site a warm and earthy feel. We furnished the yurt up and put in a wood burning stove that really keeps it warm! More pictures have been added!
  

2016

• January - February - Bridge almost done!It's been quite a project! The engineer and the county were concerned about El Nino...so they may have had us OVER ENGINEER THIS THING! 91 yards of concrete, 30,000 pounds of steel! A road has been cut to the middle of the property, where we will be building "Star Gazer" next. What a view up there! Plans are still with the architect, but we expect to be in plan check shortly. Discovered a natural spring coming from a huge square of granite (24'x12')...it's unbelievably beautiful! The bears are still about, but we have a deal...I leave them alone and they reciprocate. I've decided to keep the property "green" and off the grid. Been researching solar options and have selected two good sites for the panels. Well will go in after the first solar field is set up. The yurt is remarkably comfortable, even in the very cold winter. The wood burning stove works so well we have to open the dome so we don't sweat all night, and cooks food like a champ. Added more pictures!
  
• March - May - Bridge was completed in mid March. Finally! The team has graded the road up the mountain and the pad for the next habitation...StarGazer! Architectural plans were submitted for permits of this 2000 square foot, omni-directional view, beautiful home. The views from the site are amazing! There's a sunset view shot in the pictures section. We drilled a well in the front of the property and hit delicious water that is pumping out at 20 GPM! We are totally green on the property, so we installed a solar pumping plant that pushes the water 1200' up the mountain, changing elevation about 200'. It works great! The solar pumps filled 3 - 5000 gallon tanks in 2 days! We've plumbed the main down to the house site and to the required fire department connection. Currently rough plumbing the house and waiting for the permits to finally come out (it's been 10 weeks!). Hopefully we'll be pouring the foundation in 2 1/2 weeks. The home will feature 3 bedrooms and 2 baths downstairs and the top floor will have no interior walls with large picture windows providing a 360 degree view from the mountain. The second floor has a peaked ceiling to 16' with a 4' clear dome on top. The kitchen, living room and dining area are in the open plan second floor. Hopefully I can get the architectural drawing loaded for everyone to see.
  
• June - August - Busy Quarter! Stargazer is framed and most of the rough electrical and plumbing are finished. Passed our framing inspection and hoping to call for inspection of our rough ins next week. Then we can button it up and tart on the finish work. The ceiling on the open plan top floor is amazing! what a view from up there. 360 degrees and directly above a huge skylight to see the stars. I put a couple of pictures up. Unfortunately I've been taking mostly video, which will not load on this site. The Cedar Fire shut us down for 10 days, but we used the time to clear brush, dead trees and other combustibles from around the house. Great job by Tulare Fire, Cal Fire, Kern Fire and tons of other departments stopping the fire 2 miles from us. I keep buying lunch for any of them I run into!  Bless all those folks!!! The bears have been back lately, keeping me and Gunner up some nights. I love sleeping at the Stoney Yurt site, but am looking forward to the amenities that Stargazer will offer. Hoping to have it habitable by late October, early November. I'll get some more pics up shortly.