We'd like to take a moment to introduce our new partners in farming.
Ronn & Ginger Parsley!
Ronn and Ginger are Jason's folks. Over the course of the last few years, Ronn and Ginger have spent an average of 63 days per year working on our farm in bits and pieces on one project or another. After being laid off last summer, Ronn decided he had had enough of the engineering and construction industry. After many long and involved talks, the four of us have decided to work together in partnership on Omache Farm.
So far, things are working out well. They have brought some new things to the table that are allowing us to take some larger steps in growth on the farm in order to become our main or only source of income for both families. I am sure you will take the time to get to know them and enjoy the new offerings they are helping to bring to market each week.
Full biographies follow below:
Ronn's Biography
Ronn was born and raised in the San Fernando Valley, a suburb of Los Angeles California. Growing up, Ronn heard many stories from his father of life growing up on a farm in South Dakota during the depression and his father’s wish to retire to a ranch to raise Black Angus cattle.
At 18, Ronn left home for college, first at Oregon State University and then to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo where he earned a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Engineering. He then moved on to the University of Illinois for a Masters degree in Mechanical Engineering. It was there where he met Ginger. After Graduation, Ronn and Ginger moved to Seattle to begin his career in the mechanical engineering field. He and Ginger married in 1979, shortly after moving to Seattle.
During his 35 years in the mechanical engineering and construction industry, Ronn designed, built or modified the air conditioning, plumbing or mechanical system in over 3,000 commercial buildings.
With long hours, long daily commutes and his father’s stories in the back of his mind, the day in and day out rat race convinced him he wanted something different. When Jason and Margaret began growing their farm in 2010, Ronn began saving his sick and vacation days in order to spend as much as 60 days spread across the year assisting on the farm. After many long discussions with Ginger and then Jason and Margaret, Ronn decided it was time for a change in career and lifestyle.
After 35 long years of long hours at a desk, almost as long commutes, regular paychecks and benefits, Ronn is finding himself being called anew as a FARMER.
Ginger's Biography
Ginger was born in 1940 in Rock Island, Illinois and grew up in Illinois and Iowa. An only child, she and her parents worked a 360 acre farm that included a ten-cow Holstein milk herd, hogs, sheep, chickens, geese and Herefords from Texas in the winter. Her family used draft horses for plowing, seeding and haying work who had an uncanny ability to know when it was lunch time.
She attended the last one room school in Scott County, Iowa. The school had 14 children across eight grades. Ginger attended Black Hawk Junior college where she earned her associates degree encompassing engineering, math, psychology and ancient literature. She also attended the University of Illinois for Engineering and law.
In the late 1970s Ginger and Ronn met at the University of Illinois. They married in 1979 in Seattle and had two sons: Aaron and Jason. Since then, Ginger has spent her time raising Aaron and Jason, working with the Boy Scouts for the past 27 years, held positions at Investment firms, Engineering firms, the Lake Washington School District and helped to run Parsley Engineering Inc., the consulting firm that she and Ronn held for nearly 10 years.
Throughout her life, she has held her farm experiences close to her heart, regaling Jason and any others she could with tales of her childhood on the farm. Now she is getting to live a new farm life tending chickens, gardening vegetables and flowers and wrangling grandchildren after she had told them some story or other about how she caused trouble as a child.
