Story

Welcome to Hope Ranch, where we invite you to experience the magic of our special piece of land in Hood River, Oregon. Our story began on a small sailboat where we lived, traveling to quaint islands to surf, fish, and save money for 9 years. We loved our life on the ocean, but we dreamed of owning a beautiful piece of land to farm and start a family. In 2009 we used our nine years worth of savings and bought our home and ranch in Hood River. It was an old horse ranch and we ultimately dreamed of turning it into a lavender farm. As first generation farmers, we knew little about farming and had a minimal amount of money. What we did have was a passion and a drive to work the land and we had a tremendous gift, neighbors that became like family. They taught us, mentored us, and loved on us through each season. We began our farming adventure on Hope Ranch by farming hay and breeding cows for beef. We started a family and tended to our property. We worked hard doing all the work ourselves with babies at our side. In 2019, we began to break ground on our lavender farm dream. It started out smoothly, but in 2020 we lost most of our plants and at the same time Mike was diagnosed with brain cancer. 2020 was a tough year for everyone and especially hard on us at Hope Ranch. We were well supported by our fantastic community who came out to help us farm and feed our family. Since then we have had seasons of healing, replanting, cancer regression and devastating cancer recurrences. Mike has had three brain surgeries and lots of chemotherapy and radiation treatments in these years. During these tough times we have done lots of work to get our lavender business up and going. In 2025 with tons of help from our friends and community we built a beautiful event structure in the middle of our lavender field. 2026 has opened a new exciting venture for our beautiful farm we have received approval to host weddings in the lavender field. This is so important for our family as Mike still receiving a lot of treatment for his brain cancer and is unable to work. We are determined to see our lavender farm grow and thrive through the tough seasons of life. We continue to farm our hay fields and we still love raising our beef cows and chickens. Our three children enjoy living and working alongside us on the farm they are all involved in the local 4H and help us tremendously on the farm. We are blessed beyond measure and we look forward to sharing the beauty of Hope Ranch with you and your family next time you visit Hood River, Oregon.