I grew up on a small farm in northern Iowa. We grew mostly corn and soybeans, and raised some hogs, cattle, and smaller stock for meat. Somehow living on the flat prairie and following a plow was not exciting enough for me.
I studied Mechanical Engineering at Iowa State and graduated in 1982 into the teeth of the worst economy since the Great Depression. I worked hard finding my first job, and I ended up working for the US Navy designing tooling and inspection gauges, at a small facility in Pomona Ca. Not a great job, crappy place to live, but I got to work with a lots of aerospace contractors and military bases.
Two years later the economy had improved and I had my choice of job offers. I moved about three hours north to another Navy base called China Lake. I worked there another 30 yrs. As I got close to retirement, I found the insanity of California politics too much to bear, so my wife and I started looking for farm land we could afford. I ended up buying 64 ac in the Ozark mtns of eastern Oklahoma. I'm trying to build a ranch and I'm raising Red Sheep and Kiko Goats.
Nothing here seems to work like it did in Iowa, so I consider my self a farmer in training. I promise to pester everyone with lots of questions about building fences on this rocky, vertical land, and controlling the parasites affecting my animals. Every day here I'm learning something new.
I studied Mechanical Engineering at Iowa State and graduated in 1982 into the teeth of the worst economy since the Great Depression. I worked hard finding my first job, and I ended up working for the US Navy designing tooling and inspection gauges, at a small facility in Pomona Ca. Not a great job, crappy place to live, but I got to work with a lots of aerospace contractors and military bases.
Two years later the economy had improved and I had my choice of job offers. I moved about three hours north to another Navy base called China Lake. I worked there another 30 yrs. As I got close to retirement, I found the insanity of California politics too much to bear, so my wife and I started looking for farm land we could afford. I ended up buying 64 ac in the Ozark mtns of eastern Oklahoma. I'm trying to build a ranch and I'm raising Red Sheep and Kiko Goats.
Nothing here seems to work like it did in Iowa, so I consider my self a farmer in training. I promise to pester everyone with lots of questions about building fences on this rocky, vertical land, and controlling the parasites affecting my animals. Every day here I'm learning something new.
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