Let's get started

For now I plan to blog about our life on the ranch and our journey into the world of natural gas production.

In 1975 my FIL bought about 400 acres in southeast Oklahoma. He had just retired from the Air Force. His oldest child was 17 and his youngest was 5. I'm married to the youngest. He moved his 5 sons and one daughter to a ramshackle little rent house not far from his land. My poor MIL had a saltwater well and no air conditioning. The cattle market was very good and the next year "Papa Nano" (as he was named by my oldest) was able to pay for the mother cows with their calves. A few years later the family was able to build a house which Papa Nano and Grandma still live in today. It is the home my husband grew up in and has a beautiful view of the land.



The children grew up learning to work hard and read well. The family didn't have a tv until Andrew went to college. Each of the children picked professions that they are suited to. My DH was always taking things apart and became a mechanical engineer. His sister loved books and became a librarian. His older brother always played army men and war games. He went to West Point and is still in the U.S. Army. Another brother is a doctor and another designs computer chips and another works in the finance industry.

Fast forward to the year 2000. All the children were grown and moved away from the ranch. Andrew and I were living in Norman, Oklahoma. He worked as a welding engineer for General Motors. We had bought a house and two new cars. I had worked for a travel agency but was staying home with our first son, Thomas. Andrew didn't really like GM-OKC and applied for a job in Michigan. Before he accepted that job I asked him if he ever thought about going back home to ranch with his dad. He said, "No, I don't have the passion for it." So we moved to Lansing, Michigan and Andrew started with a brand new plant that built the first Cadillac CTS.

I loved it in Michigan! We had a sweet little 1940's house in East Lansing with hard wood floors and a pretty yard. I had friends and activities. We even had family in Michigan because Andrew's mom had grown up in Detroit. We spent Thanksgivings with his Uncle Bill and Aunt Terry. I taught some math at our local community college. Our second son, James, was born in 2002.

By then we had decided that Andrew wanted to start his own business and that ranching is a business. We also decided that there was nobody better to teach us the business than Papa Nano!