Hofer Ranch Traditional Cache
xtinkshun: This one is a goner. What a bummer. When are they going to ever stop developing stuff??? Sheesh!
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Difficulty:
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Size: 
(small)
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Paul Hofer III, one of the owners of the Hofer Ranch in
California's booming western Inland Empire, is learning -- like his
ancestors -- to adapt to the land.
Back in 1882, his great-great grandfather, Iowa farmer Sanford
Ballou, bought about 75 acres of land in California from Southern
Pacific Railroad. After trying unsuccessfully to grow corn, wheat
and cotton -- crops his family grew in Iowa -- he learned he had to
adapt to his new surroundings. So the Ballous followed other
farmers in the area: growing apricots, peaches and grapes for
raisins, and eventually expanding to wine grapes, which became the
family farm's dominant crop.
More than a century later, Mr. Hofer is in the midst of a similar
adapting of sorts. Surrounded by sprawling office buildings,
industrial warehouses, and air-cargo facilities, the Hofer Ranch,
which his family continues to farm, is fast on its way to becoming
just like its neighbors. The ranch is the largest contiguous piece
of undeveloped real estate in the Inland Empire.
As urbanization increases in the area, the Hofer Family goal is to
preserve as much as 30 acres of the existing vineyards and the
homestead -- including a barn and the original turn-of-the-century
farmhouse, where Mr. Hofer still lives. Mr. Hofer says he wants to
have a research vineyard there, too.
Adapting is bittersweet for Mr. Hofer, 56, who has lived all his
life on the farm. "The day the vineyards are pulled out, that's
going to sting," he says. "It's time, though. We're realistic. We
realize there needs to be a change. Farming the land isn't
economically viable anymore." Mr. Hofer adds that keeping the
homestead intact was "an important thing to everybody in the
family." Once complete, the site will likely be the first so-called
mixed-use development to include a farmhouse and barn.
MUY IMPORTANTE!
You’re looking for a decon container just down the road a
tad from the ranch. Bring some gloves or use a stick to poke around
to find it. Scary bugs and biting-type critters may be sharing a
home with this cache and since I ain't collecting rent, I have no
say in what moves in! Be sure to re-cammo well.
Bring your own writing utensil.
***Congrats to mompickme for FTF!!***
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