On Wednesday September 2nd 1992 I got a call from my dad about a 265 acre farm in the Willamette Valley that was for sale. We had formed a partnership a couple years prior “Yosemite Pacific” and were looking to invest, did this property have promise? Around a third of the land was covered in a 30 year old forest, another third high grade farmland and one boarder was on Muddy Creek. There was an old farmstead and a trailer where a mom and daughter lived (80 and 55 years old). On the hills between the farmland and timber were a couple 5 acre Christmas tree farms. Leases covered the crops and Christmas trees.
Bob Latham had discovered the property, he was a forester in Corvallis my dad kept in contact with. His analysis was the timber was to young to harvest, but had passed on the information to dad in case it fit our criteria. After receiving the aerial photos from the Hammon Jensen and Wallen office, I drove down to the NE corner of the Van Krosigk property and hiked straight up through the forest. The trees looked bigger than 30 year old’s, some 20+ inches in diameter. About ¾ of the way up the hill were a couple big monsters, then breaking out on top the view was impressive. Unsure if I went straight to a phone booth or waited till I got home to make my call: “this is a gem, we need to buy it.” A week later, I drove Jan down and we walked the property together, we loved it.
Buying the property took some work and my dad worked his magic. Within a few weeks we had it in escrow and were dreaming up names for our new partnership. Latham thought it could be Raincloud Associates. The concept of a partnership including Yosemite Pacific, White Cloud and Latham. Instead, after my folks visited, they decided to buy it on their own and the potential partners were all notified, monies refunded. Then the work began.
The early 90’s were the era of fax machines, all of my notes hand written on yellow paper and sent fax. The work included dealing with leases, cleanup, partnership arrangements, and communication with attorneys. Within months my mom and dad took over, hired an architect (Gary Day) and began plans for a house on the site. I was able to supply much of the lumber: Beams from Spaulding and Sons, framing lumber from Seattle Snohomish, Siding from MacMillan Bloedel and finish lumber from Delta Cedar. My good friends at Gene Stringfield lumber took care of the transport.
All three of our boys were born in the ensuing years, they were able to grow up playing, hiking, planting and working on Raindance Ranch. The memories and grounded nature of learning from the earth will forever be rooted in their beings. Most of the timber is now 70-80 years old, the old farmhouse still standing next to a very old orchard. The new orchard up by the house near were I came out of the forest 33 years ago fully mature. The wildlife flourishes here as well at Raindance Ranch, clearly a beneficiary from the restorative work my parents did over the past few decades. My folks l looked forward to “escaping the California freeways and desert for some good green land.” We all are thankful for that!