My place of refuge

[Joshua States]

I just came back from a week at our property in New Mexico. Our lot is 5.15 acres of forest at 7300 feet of elevation. Douglas fir, Oak, Juniper, Ponderosa pine, and red Cedar. It is 8 miles off the paved road. There are electricity and phone lines at the road frontage, but no cell service, not even text messages. So mobile data is completely out of the question. We are planning on building our retirement home here in the next 5-7 years. We put a driveway in soon after we purchased the land in 2006. We had some land cleared in 2016 and drilled the well last fall. We went out last week and set the well tank and poured the foundation for the well house. 

Here is the view from the road at the front of our lot.

It winds through the trees , crosses a wash and climbs up into the clearing. About 100 yards total. Here is the view from the clearing looking at the top of the drive. (west)

What we had cleared for the house site. (facing east)

The view from the top of the drive (looking northeast). The shop will be to the left in the photo where my truck is parked..

The well tank on the 6 inch slab and the foundation piers for the well house. The tank is set so the bottom is above the well house floor and will gravity feed the pump/bladder system. It is also about 4-1/2 feet above the house floor so in the event of power failure, we will be able to gravity feed the house.plumbing.

A little bit of the wildlife that roams around. I have seen wild turkey and loads of mule deer. While hiking in the woods, we have seen sign from bear, lion, elk, and bobcat.

Paradise awaits.

[Austin_Lyles]

That's awesome Josh! Out in the wilderness away from it all. I'm sure you could hear a mouse fart with how quiet it is out there.

[Alan Longmire]

New Mexico is one of my favorite places, but I've never seen it that green!  That has to be northeast NM, right?

[ScottWright]

Amazing. I hope I am able to retire to such a quiet place in 30 years or so. I used to be a well driller and I always loved going to far off places like yours for jobs. It was a change of pace from our normal activity which was public wells. It is amazing what is so close yet so isolated. Can't wait to see more in the future.

[Brian Dougherty]

Very nice

[Jason McEntee]

That will be one hell of a retirement home. Very nice place; I'm jealous!

[Joshua States]

13 hours ago, Alan Longmire said:

New Mexico is one of my favorite places, but I've never seen it that green!  That has to be northeast NM, right?

This is about an hour south and east of Gallup and two hours west of Albuquerque. Just outside a tiny Town of ~650 pop. Called Ramah.

 

13 hours ago, ScottWright said:

Amazing. I hope I am able to retire to such a quiet place in 30 years or so.

Land is really inexpensive right now in this area called Timberlake Ranch. http://ramahrealty.com a lot of folks who bought a decade or so ago have figured out they will never build and are dumping property. There is an owner's association that is very well managed. http://www.trnews.info/index.html and not too intrusive.

[Jim Pierce]

Now that's a view to wake up to every morning! Lucky you.

[Timothy Artymko]

That's a beautiful piece of property! And I can see that it is so affordable as a place to run away to! 

[Joshua States]

We took a short trip back up this week and brought some building materials out to the lot. While we were around we took a short hike up to a little spot where there is a small canyon with a couple of waterfalls. The water wasn't running, but the area is still pretty and there are several standing pools between the upper and lower falls.

Here we are standing alongside the top of the lower falls.

This is the lower falls. The water has worn through the stone in two spots and undermined the rock making a natural stone bridge.

To get an idea of the size, here is Liz sitting on the bridge next to the smaller of the two holes.

 

[Joshua States]

When we were out there during May, I put up a trail camera on the lot. I got 938 pictures. 935 of them were of the wind blowing a small tree around. However three of them were at night and caught a nocturnal visitor.

[Garry Keown]

A wonderfull slice of Gods green earth to settle down in/on is the dream of so many so it is always nice to see it being achieved.

[Joshua States]

We just spent a week out there getting the wellhouse/storage building completed. It was glorious weather. I collected the trail cams and found over 12,000 pics. It took a while to sort through them all.

 

Here is the wellhouse.

 

 

I still have to put the Deck boards down. The 6x12 deck is intended for firewood curing.

 

 

 

 

[Joshua States]

There were a few good photos of the wildlife. The turkeys seem to like it in winter. About 20 of them came in to roost while we were there last December.

 

 

A couple of Elk on the trails cams. (the dates are all screwed up)

 

 

 

[Gerald Boggs]

What"s the purpose of the well house?  Did you move the tank inside?

[Joshua States]

The house will hold the pressure pump, the bladder and the filtration system.

The tank is on a small rise. The bottom of the tank is about 1 foot above the floor of the well house, which is about 3 or 4 feet above where the floor of the residence will be.

The power lines in this area are pretty old and power can drop for a couple of hours in thunder storms or heavy snowfall. I wanted to create a system that would gravity feed in case of electrical outage. (see the first post)

Edited May 30, 2020 by Joshua States

[Bill Schmalhofer]

I am so jealous. My wife and I have started looking for property in southern Ohio to do something similar but we haven't found anything we like (that we can afford). Must be like a slice of heaven. The picts sure make it seem like that.

 

[Gerald Boggs]

Cool, now that you explained, it was pretty obvious.  I'm on a well, so I should have had an clue :-)

[Joshua States]

On 5/30/2020 at 2:31 PM, Bill Schmalhofer said:

I am so jealous. My wife and I have started looking for property in southern Ohio to do something similar but we haven't found anything we like (that we can afford). Must be like a slice of heaven. The picts sure make it seem like that.

 

land in this part of NM is still pretty inexpensive. 5 acres is going for around $20K

[Bill Schmalhofer]

6 hours ago, Joshua States said:

land in this part of NM is still pretty inexpensive. 5 acres is going for around $20K

That's a bit of a commute for me from central Indiana .

 

Have to see what the boss says after I show her this thread. Your pictures of the area are beautiful and she would love to get back to mountains (we used to live in NH). $20K is a LOT less than what I've been looking at in OH....

[Joshua States]

The area our property is in, is called Timberlake Ranch.

Zillow shows this:  https://www.zillow.com/ramah-nm/timberlake-ranch-_att/

A lot of these lots are down in the open, flat area of The Ranch. There are also houses for sale by owner that don't show up on the MLS listing.

[Gerald Boggs]

Wow!, those are some great prices.

[Joshua States]

These properties are somewhere between rural and remote geographically. So, you have to be prepared for a certain lifestyle.

My lot is 8 miles off the paved road. Cell phone coverage on the entire ranch is spotty or non-existent (I have zero coverage reception, not even text)

Electric and phone lines were put in during the 1970's and service interruptions are common during foul weather, and the average elevation is around 7000 feet above sea level.

Summer T-storms and winter snow is to be expected.

Internet is only available via satellite provider. There is no sewer, municipal water, or trash pickup. 

The nearest grocery store is about a 30 minute drive. A full service grocery store or home improvement depot is an hour away.

Costco, is a 2 hour drive. There is a small farming community at the end of the 8 mile dirt road (pop. ~650) with a Dollar Store and a post office. It also has a few small businesses, a Ferrell Gas provider, a summer farmer's market, a middle/high school (possibly K-12), and a very small museum. A 4-way stop sign went in a couple years ago.

 

 

[Chris Christenberry]

Sounds like my kind of place!  I've about had it with civilization.  (if there is any civility left in this country!)

[Gerald Boggs]

1 hour ago, Joshua States said:

Cell phone coverage on the entire ranch is spotty

Electric and phone lines were put in during the 1970's and service interruptions are common during foul weather, and the average elevation is around 7000 feet above sea level.

Summer T-storms and winter snow is to be expected.

Internet is only available via satellite provider. There is no sewer, municipal water, or trash pickup

Sounds a lot like where I live, except for the elevation and distance to stores, 1400 at the house 1900 over the pass.  My power comes over the mountains, so power outages via ice storms or wind storms are common.