ABOUT

"I grew up on a dairy farm in central MN, a small town called North Prairie.  Always enjoyed the outdoors, driving tractors and taking care of animals.  I would help mom plant a garden with veggies and flowers in the spring.  Didn’t necessarily appreciate the farm life until later in life.  Many lessons learned while growing up on the farm that have shaped me to who I am today.  

 

Funny story, because I lived to tell about it.  Our dad bought us a mini-bike one year and of course we had plenty of land to go ride around in.  The one rule Dad had for us was when we drove through the yard that we slow down and look to make sure we didn’t run into the tractor or people that might be in the yard. 

 

Well, I must not have heard him correctly because one day I went out for a ride and came tearing back through the yard, not slowing down and WHACK!  My dad sideswiped me with the tractor.  Hit me right in the side of my hip and threw me from the bike. 

 

I thought for sure I was a dead person, not because of being hit but because of how mad dad was going to be that I didn’t listen to him.  Well, I ended up with a severely bruised hip and ego.  And once my dad knew I was alright he then asked me what lesson did I learn.  I’d say I should have driven faster and he would have missed me completely!

 

Selling our house in Coon Rapids was always the plan once our daughter Shea was out on her own.  However I think what we thought would happen didn’t necessarily work out that way.  The pandemic certainly played a role in what our next step in life would be. 

 

Shea ended up moving back home, my job with Marriott was uncertain and Shelly had started working for Medica only 6 months before we got locked up.  We spent that whole year of 2020 trying to figure out how to live, work and play in the same space 24/7.  Which I guess was what the rest of the world was doing as well. 

 

In our old place we had a beautiful backyard with a Koi pond, vegetable garden, flower gardens and a beautiful pergola that had a fireplace and brick oven built into it.  Shelly is definitely the more creative one who has a vision of how she sees things and then makes that vision a reality.  She read up on how to build a greenhouse and thought it would be fun to be able to grow plants year round.  What started as a hobby turned into a seed that planted the idea of maybe doing something on a bigger scale.  

 

We grew several different flowers that we shared with friends and did a mini flower sale in the spring.  It was then that we began talking about maybe thinking about how we could make this a full time gig.  I felt like maybe this was a way out of the corporate world and a transition into retirement doing something we both love. 

 

Once we made the decision to pursue this adventure the wheels started turning pretty fast.  Housing market at the time was awesome, so we knew we could sell the house pretty quickly and we most certainly did.  The harder part was finding the right place for us to move into and be able to move forward with our dream.  Well, after 2 long months (1 of which where we were homeless!) we found the perfect place!

 

I’ve always believed that things do happen for a reason and that there is a higher power in control of all things.  This move and this business all seem like what we are supposed to be doing at this time in our life.  I look forward to this next adventure and am so thankful that we have this opportunity."