Do You Believe?

So much of what is received in email is questionable. So much of the legends we hear about here in the Sierra Foothills are questionable. So much of what is in the news is questionable. Do you believe everything you read and hear? I can’t tell you how many times I have heard from folks that they got an email, or heard a local story, or something in the media, that just has to be true. Because it was in an email, or, on the internet, or told to us by the news media, it just has to be true! Is it time to wake up?

My husband recounted a story for me many times of when he was in the fourth grade. He was told if you do not know something, and want to find out about a topic, go look it up and research it. The difference between today and back then is back then there was no internet. You actually had to go to a library. Today, the internet is loaded with good information and a lot of mis-information. You just have to weed through it to discover what is correct and what isn’t. Googling something is not the end all be all of information, and same with Yahoo.

If you look up Placerville, CA on the internet and go to the Wikipedia website, it states that Placerville is located in the “Sacramento–Arden-Arcade–Roseville Metropolitan Statistical Area.” This is not correct. We are located in El Dorado County, which they do have correct. The Arden Arcade area is near the western side of Sacramento, and Roseville is in the northern metropolitan area quite a distance away from Arden Arcade. Placerville is 42 miles from Sacramento, and is not located in Sacramento County where Arden Arcade and Roseville are.

If you read my blog on the Dogwoods, then you have seen a good example of story telling. We were told about the local Indian legend of the snow on the Dogwoods, and guess what? I researched the topic and found that this was something that had to do with people of the olden days watching nature. It had nothing to do with our local Native Americans.

It is great that the site Snopes.com exists, and they are one of the very few websites that actually looks into the validity of what gets passed around the internet. We need more sites like this. Does anyone out there know of another site like Snopes? If you do, please let me know.

So if you are looking for information about fruits and vegetables, go look at an agricultural website. If you want to find something out that is historical, go to the historical archives where the history you are looking for occurred. You get my drift. Don’t believe everything you read or hear. Look it up and verify the information!

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Miner’s in the Sierra Foothills – Part III

This is the conclusion of the article from guest blogger Paul Beacham.  This part of the article has to do with local mines in our area!

The following are just a few of literally hundreds of mines in our area.

Negro Hill Mine
The Negro Hill Mine was a placer gold mine that was in operation many years ago. It was located three miles to the northeast of Placerville at Negro Hill. The deposit of gold bearing, ancient river gravel at this location was mined by drifting and hydraulics.

Slate Mountain Mines
Three miles northwest of Slate Mountain (southeast of Georgetown) was the Slate Mountain Mine, a lode gold mine. It was active intermittently from 1921 to 1941 and again in 1951. A one and one-half to six foot-wide vein of gold-bearing quartz was developed by a 600-foot crosscut adit and 2400 feet of drifts. The ore was treated in a 10-stamp mill.  A second Slate Mountain Mine, near Slate Mountain, was a lode gold mine. The deposit consisted to two veins of gold-bearing quartz that was developed prior to 1898 through a 100-foot shaft.

White Owl Mine
Near Red Bird Creek, two miles southeast of Mosquito Camp (Swansboro Country area) was the White Owl Mine, a lode gold mine. It was active in 1938 when a one and one-half to three foot wide vein of gold bearing quartz was developed by a 65-foot inclined shaft.  The ore, which yielded up to $65 per ton, was treated in a two-ton Gibson Mill.

A copy of the Miners 10 commandments - CA State Library

Darling (Chanced Upon) Mine
The Darling (Chanced Upon) Mine was four miles northeast of Spanish Flat. A two-foot vein of gold bearing quartz in slate yielded $5 to $6 per ton in free gold. The deposit was developed by a 190-foot shaft. The ore was treated on site in a 10-stamp mill.

Independence Mine
The Independence Mine was a lode gold mine two miles southwest of the town site of El Dorado. The ore was found in pockets and was mined prior to 1914.  A second Independence Mine was a lode gold mine four miles northwest of Slate Mountain and about five miles southeast of Georgetown. It was active in 1933, when the ore was treated in a 2-stamp mill.

Ida Livingston Mine
The Ida Livingston Mine was a lode gold mine on the Mother Lode, one mile north of Kelsey. The deposit consisted of a rich, 25-foot  gold-bearing quartz vein that yielded up to $26 per ton of ore. It was mined prior to 1914 through a 150-foot shaft.

The above mine information obtained at – County of El Dorado

Thank you Paul for your contribution! There is a mine not mentioned in this list that is local to Placerville, and that would be Gold Bug Mine. I will be making a visit there soon, so look for a photo blog and a bit more history from Life in the Foothills!

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Miner’s in the Sierra Foothills – Part I

Another guest blog from Paul J. Beacham…on Mining in the Sierra Foothills. There is so much information here, that I decided to split this article into 3 parts. I hope that you enjoy Part I!

1848, a few years before our time, but a year that impacted the area in which we now live. Due west from our house, eight miles as the crows fly, is Coloma. Coloma is to California history as Manhattan is to New York’s. This is where the east came west and those that were fortunate made their riches in Gold!

In 1848 James Wilson Marshall was building a sawmill for Johan Sutter. Sutter created a settlement in what is today Sacramento. Marshall was in his employ and constructed the sawmill along the American River in Coloma, CA. January 24, 1848 marked the discovery of gold at the mill. California at this time was still a possession of Mexico, but the Mexican-American War that began in 1846 soon ended and California became a U.S. Territory. News spread fast, the gold seekers came, and their stories are relinquished to history. Marshall died penniless in August of 1885 in the town of Kelsey, which is about a four mile toss of the coin from our house.

The importance of all this is that the gold mining that started 164 years ago left an impact on our location. Gold miners flocked in. Names became known – Stanford, Studebaker, Sutter, Marshall, to name a few. Fortunes were made, and fortunes were lost.

The area we live in is geographically known as the “Mother Lode.” Within the Mother Lode is our nearest town of Placerville, placer being the key word, and this and other terms you will read here will be translated in Part II. Glory holes were located at Weber Creek, where Pay Dirt was found by several Prospectors. Places like the Slate Mountain Mine still have rail tracks coming out of the ground, others like Negro Hill are landmarked by the huge immoveable boulders that have stood since the Ice Age and couldn’t be budged by the miners efforts.

Mines in our area range from the 1850’s to the 1950’s. Don’t forget, during that time frame gold was fifteen to thirty dollars an ounce. We have even found small gold color flakes present in the dirt on our property, especially after a rain. Whether it is actually gold, we don’t know as it could be Fools Gold, biotite, or maybe pyrrhotite. It is so fine that we’d probably have to sift through all our property in order to obtain enough to run tests. The old Assay office in town is long gone, and at this point in our life we don’t think digging up acres of land for a bit of the gold stuff is a worthwhile endeavor. Yet – it’s still here in our backyard!   Here is a photo of what we have found in our yard and if you click on the photo and then click again you will see a close up.

What we have found in our yard.

These are as thin as tissue paper and the size of a pin point and it took about two hours just to collect these five little bits!

Those days of getting “Popcorn” or “Pumpkin Gold” are gone.  Stay tuned for Part II which will cover the vocabulary of the golden days of mining!

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The Beauty of Snow

As promised in my last blog, I want to share with you snow in the Sierra Foothills. Snow today went down to 1800 feet, and we are close to 2600 here at our house. But the snow started yesterday…

From the front door

From the kitchen while cooking Cordon Bleu

Notice the Pooh Bear on the deck

We woke up this morning around 6ish…Here is what we woke up to…

Snow in the front

Pooh Bear in the morning

From the kitchen in the morning

Check in tomorrow for more snow photos of the beauty of where we live!

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Miraflores Winery Tour

So now we go on to the third winery we visited: Miraflores in Placerville. Come with me, Ethel, Barb and Wayne as we visit this winery!

Again, as with our adventure to the other wineries, the road was winding and scenic.

We see alpacas on the way

When we came upon the alpaca farm, which had to have had about 50 of these beautiful creatures, Barb asked if we should stop. I told the group that if we did, I would have to buy something, which led to stories from both Barb and Ethel about what they bought because they stopped! From what I heard, it would be well worth the stop…and we continued on.

We found Miraflores, and drove up the narrow road to the winery. The road is a little rough to the winery, so if you make the trip, take your time. As we approached the winery we found ourselves below the tasting room.

Coming upon Miraflores Winery

Miraflores is one of the small producers in El Dorado County. But the place is grand as are their wines! We headed into the tasting room, which is a new building for them. The previous building held their tanks and barrels. Once in the tasting room we realized that they were really busy!

We sidled up to the tasting room bar. Having been to this winery before, I was on the hunt for the Pinot Grigio, which I had bought on my last visit. I was looking forward to this wine, and was told that unfortunately the wine was no longer available, which taught me a lesson, and one that I will share with you. If you find a wine that you really love, buy it, and buy more than one bottle, otherwise if you go looking for it on your next visit, you might not be able to get it! Even thought I was disappointed, I do look forward to their next release of this wine!

They have an impressive flight of wines. A flight, is the listing of wines that you will be able to try in their tasting room. I stepped back from the bar with a taste of their 2009 Barbera. I marveled at the grandeur of their tasting room.

Inside the Miraflores Tasting Room

Standing back from the crowd, I let the flavors of the Barbera roll around my mouth. This is typically an acidic wine that goes well with any food that has acid, like a dish that includes tomato sauce. Their Barbera was lively and crisp and would definitely hold up to a tomato based dish.

The next wine that I tried was the 2007 Zinfandel, which was rated by Wine Enthusiast Magazine with a score of 92! And this was a most impressive wine! I generally try wines and make my own determination as to whether I like the wine or not. I rarely rely on ratings from reviewers and magazines as what I may like another person may not, so “judge for yourself” is my motto!

I strolled outside to their back patio. The wind was whipping up and I wished that I had worn a jacket. I looked at the beautiful stonework, and what captured my eye was the centerpiece of the area:

Back patio at Miraflores

As I rolled the wine over my tongue, the flavors exploded, and I was picturing what I could pair this wine with. Roast beef and vegetables came to mind! But I could also see this wine with a lovely roast duck too! I headed back in to the tasting room. Barb and Wayne were trying other wines, and Ethel found a wonderful goat cheese with a pesto sauce that was available for all to try.

My last pick was the Principe dessert wine. Here is where I found a piece of heaven on earth! This lovely dessert wine is a port style wine. I closed my eyes and was picturing in my mind how well that this wine would pair with a rich chocolate mousse cake! The grapes used for this wine are a Touriga Nacional and a Tinto Cao. This wine was loaded with smooth plum flavors, and rich chocolate notes! This wine had to come home with me!

Before leaving I ventured to take some photos of their vineyards that not only surround the winery, but flow up the hills rising above them.

Miraflores' vineyards

Behind the pines are more vineyards

Next, we head on over to the tasting room of a very new winery in the Placerville area: Chateau Davell!

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First Snow This Winter!

I woke up this morning and there was a present waiting for me! Snow! We finally had our first snow of the winter season. While it is not much, it did snow! The sun is taking its time coming up, but I am patiently waiting to take photos to share with you. Braving the cold I step outside…

Snow by the rain gauge

Snow on our back deck

A dusting in our back yard

The last snow photo before I go back in

I hope that you enjoyed the walk outside with me! Brrrr…want a cup of coffee or cocoa?

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Room with a Deer View by Paul Beacham

Abram Peter Turner Elder was responsible for some more Sierra Foothill’s lore and history. A native of Middletown, Rhode Island, his main occupation was that of a publisher. Some accounts have him owning a Boston newspaper and building the Sir Francis Drake Hotel in San Francisco. Neither could be verified, and the Sir Francis Drake makes no mention of an A.P.T. Elder on the history section of their website. Sounds as though he must have spun a good yarn to some folks.

One of the books he was working on was promoted at the Panama Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco in 1915. While at the exposition he noticed and took a fancy to the Michigan Building. This was the State of Michigan’s pavilion at the exposition. At the close of the exposition he purchased the Michigan building, had it dismantled, and moved to a 350 acre parcel he owned in El Dorado County, CA. He named his parcel Deer View. The Photo below shows a portion of the Deer View Lodge building in the left side foreground.

Deer ViewvLodge - Thanks to SierraNevadaAdventures.com

The building was reassembled at Deer View and turned into a lodge around 1918. Mr. Elder’s envisioned the area as a retreat, an area that would invigorate, an area which should be used to enjoy all aspects of nature as well as hunting nature. After completing the Deer View Lodge he started his next adventure, the 250 room Hotel Bret Harte, located next to the lodge.

Hotel-Bret-HartA1 - Thanks to SierraNevadaAdventures.com

Hotel Bret Harte was to be revolutionary for the times, and location. Each room was to have its own bath with hot water, outdoor swimming pools, promenade paths on the grounds to wander through orchards while picking wild berries, a virtual Eden for guests. Natural springs provided water, and power to generate electricity. One has to remember that there were no paved roads at the time. There were barely even roads. The hotel was approximately 16 miles northeast of Placerville. It was a three to four hour journey by automobile from there. Even today it would take about an hour, on a good day and with a high clearance vehicle. The road from Placerville wasn’t paved until 1943. I think it is still that 1943 original pavement that covers the original dirt road to this day.

The road was known as the Placerville-Soapweed Road, today it is called Mosquito Road. Besides several miles of twists and turns, with several 180 degree switchbacks, and thousands of bumps, the road traverses the South Fork of the American River over the oldest, still in use, suspension bridge in California.

Now known as Mosquito Bridge it has looked the same since its 1867 construction. (In 1863 El Dorado County funded the road to Mosquito, hence the bridge being built. I have found articles which indicate the bridge being constructed anywhere from 1858 to 1867.) It is still an eight foot wide, wooden bridge. The photo, below, is from 1914. The photo that follows is 95 years later. The bridge looks the almost the same except with paint!

Mosquito Bridge 1914 - Thanks to the CA State Library

Mosquito Bridge 2009

Depending on what you read, and not knowing what is actual fact, the hotel had anywhere from 500,000 to 5 million board feet of lumber used in its construction. Foundations were either made by local craftsmen or by timbers taken from old train trestles. Plumbers began plumbing the fourth floor while carpenters were still working on the first and second floors. The three story fireplace, along with the additional chimney, took over 410 tons of stone for their construction. Sadly there are too many versions to know what is what, but all make for a good story.

Before the Hotel Bret Harte was completed Mr. Elder died. (Again dates vary anywhere from 1924 on some websites to 1930 on the Library of Congress site).  His death halted the completion of the hotel. As his heirs where on the east coast, and as they did not share the same vision of Deer View as did Mr. Elder, they opted to sell what they could and leave the remainder. So the abandoned buildings were left to nature and vandals. Nature reined her heaviest toll in 1936 when a very unusual amount of snow fell on the area, leaving approximately 8.5 feet. The weight of the snow, and the poor condition of the abandoned building, caused the left side to collapse. Below is a photo showing the collapsed area.

Deerview-collapse 1937 - Photo by El Dorado County Historical Museum

Further accounts indicate the remainder of the building was razed in 1941. Today only the rock foundation walls and steps leading to the front of the building remain. Nature is slowly reclaiming her land. The area of Deer View is shown on the topographical map below. US Forest Road marker 12N60H should mark the area to stop and hike the mile or so to the site of the once grand building.

As a final note, if you do decide to visit the area, please remember:

** The area is located within US Forest boundaries but is privately owned.
** Take nothing but photos, leave nothing but footprints.
** This a season dependent adventure, don’t bother in the winter.
** There are no services (gas, food, etc.) in the forest.
** Bring water and good boots.

****

I hope that you enjoyed this article as much as I did. In the later part of summer this year we will be visiting the Deer View site to harvest some of the pears from the orchard there, and share some photos with you of what it looks like today!

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The Town of Placerville

The town of Placerville is located smack dab between Sacramento and Lake Tahoe in California. It is a quaint town with a lot of history.

Gold was found in 1848 only 8 miles north of Placerville. The town was originally called “Old Dry Diggins” which had to do with the way gold miners extracted gold from the soil. In 1849 it became known as “Hangtown” for all the hangings that occurred. In 1854 the town incorporated and the name was changed to Placerville. The town became the central hub of the Mother Lode area mining operations.

An old map of town

Follow me along a a tour of the town as it is today.

Hangman's Tree is actually located inside this building.

Taking a look across the street is the Cary Hotel. The hotel is said to be haunted. I did capture something in this photo. If you look at the top floor windows, the one farthest right, there is an image of a woman wearing Victorian dress. Look at the panes on the right side of the window. I did not see this when I took the photo.

Cary Hotel

Walking down the street a bit further, here is a photo that really gives you the flavor of Main Street.

A view of Main Street

The town still has many of the old buildings.

The building in the center is the old Masonic Temple Building

Looking to my right of this is the old bell tower.

Bell Tower

Continuing down the street we arrive at the hardware store. This is the oldest hardware store west of the Mississippi.

Oldest hardware store west of the Mississippi!

Let’s go in! Make sure you check out the wood floors…

Inside the hardware store

My favorite section of the hardware store - Kitchen goods!

Heading out of the store and up the street we come to the old jail house, which was turned into the public restrooms. Very tiny building!

The old jailhouse

Looking back down main street…

Looking back down Main Street

I could show you more, but I think that you should come and visit this historic town!

There are really good restaurants here, and a “haunted” hotel, wineries and of course Apple Hill! Tell em Barb sent you!

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What’s With the Weather?

The recent trend in Northern California weather can all be blamed on me! We have had virtually no rain since October 2011, and the weather has been unseasonally warm. Yup, it is all my fault! How you ask?

It was a day like any other. It was in October. I poured myself a cup of coffee and turned from the counter to go and watch the news. Little did I know that Toby, the face you just have to love, would be under my feet. Down I went and the coffee cup flew, with the coffee dousing half the kitchen and the cup dropping and smashing into little pieces everywhere.

I had nothing to do with it!

After cleaning things up I sat down to watch the news and figure out what I was going to do for the day. The weather was slated to be wet. With that in mind, I decided not to go too far so and thought heading down to Main Street in Placerville and browsing through the stores was the ticket. It is a quaint street, with a lot of history. The hardware store here in town is the oldest hardware store west of the Mississippi. But I digress.

I wandered around through the stores, and a sweater in the window at Combellack’s caught my eye and my feet took me in. It had been years since I bought myself any winter wear and they sure had some cute stuff. I bought a couple of wool sweaters, some wool socks, and a really cool pair of boots to wear in the snow.

That was it. That was the last day of significant rain. The weather warmed up and we have had no rain. Yes, I bought new sweaters, socks and boots and chased away winter! And my post in October that snow was coming didn’t help either! Now you know why the recent trend of weather can be blamed on me!

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Thank You to Those That Read My Posts

Life here in the Sierra Foothills is a slow paced life. The community is small. What is so cool to me is that I can reach out from this small community and connect with others around the world! I cannot tell you how thrilled I was today to discover that I have folks reading my blog outside my friends in this small community. Imagine my surprise to find that I have readers in Ireland and London! My community has gotten larger!

To all of you have spent even a moment reading my blog, “liking” my blog, commenting and rating, I sincerely hope that you are enjoying reading my posts, and I humbly thank you!

Peace be with you!
Babso2you

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