Since we didn't get out for a breakfast picnic yesterday, we made a point of getting out today first thing to the National Park. We took some apple muffins to eat next to the silo. Since he looked like a lumberjack, we stopped for some quick photos.
Then the hike on the Ice Age Trail.
In the early afternoon, we had a craft that is made of a paper grocery sack and then to glue on some fall items, like leaves and acorns. We have a good stock of those.
Then putting it up...
In the afternoon after lunch, we took a drive toward Riley and Klevenville. Lots of interesting homes.
First off, these two homes are right next to each other. This home is owned by a person who does public affairs work.
This person sells insurance.
This next home/compound just kind of blew our mind. It was actually a quick drive to see what Klevenville actually was (about 4 homes), so we needed to turn around. We chose this one road where I noticed there was a home with a private lake. We drove until we could no longer drive. It was pretty amazing.
So who is this person? The person is Ken Owens, who made his fortune in cucumbers. I'll copy his LinkedIn, which is quite interesting.
I started my career in 1982 as a cucumber and hot pepper breeder at PetoSeed. My first commercial products were Mitla, the first hybrid Jalapeno that revolutionized the Mexican hot pepper market and Babylon, a PM resistant open-field Beit Alpha that dominated the ME cucumber market for years. We had extremely high market shares in U.S. slicer and BA cukes because of innovative disease resistance. We were the first American company to breed, produce and sell parthenocarpic cucumbers in Europe and Middle East from our own internal efforts (not sourced from outside the company). I also worked for a couple years on processing tomato, eggplant and summer squash. I traveled extensively in Europe, M.East, N. Africa, Mexico and Asia.
When Seminis bought PetoSeed I became an Associate Director and oversaw all cucumber, pepper and squash breeders worldwide. Along the way I trained several new breeders and set up a seed production unit in Mexico specifically for breeders.
In 2000, I left the comfort of a large seed company and joined a group of associates and peers to start up a new seed company, Magnum Seeds and Genista (Italy). We decided to breed and produce 8 different crops and concentrate on the US, Mexico, Middle East and Southern European markets and to sell our products in a wholesale manner to other companies. From particularly rough, insecure beginnings we slowly gained sales and market share, esp. in hot pepper, cucumber, squash and sweet pepper with good growth also in eggplant, ind. tomato and watermelon. We taught a lot of new employees the business and established subsidiaries or screening stations in Italy, Spain, Florida, Mexico and California. We decided to sell the company to Limagrain in 2016 and I continued for several more years in a transitional role.
I believe it is possible to make hugely significant progress in breeding if you have enough resources, experienced employees, innovative processes and minimal bureaucracy. Magnum was able to go from zero market share, beating larger seed companies with vastly more resources, to have dominating varieties and great seed quality.
I am still interested in helping out new breeders to improve their results, helping smaller companies grow and accelerate their programs and possibly work on “orphan” or neglected crops that can become new markets or that have nutraceutical properties that can be exploited. If you have an interest or a need for any of those things, let me know.
When Seminis bought PetoSeed I became an Associate Director and oversaw all cucumber, pepper and squash breeders worldwide. Along the way I trained several new breeders and set up a seed production unit in Mexico specifically for breeders.
In 2000, I left the comfort of a large seed company and joined a group of associates and peers to start up a new seed company, Magnum Seeds and Genista (Italy). We decided to breed and produce 8 different crops and concentrate on the US, Mexico, Middle East and Southern European markets and to sell our products in a wholesale manner to other companies. From particularly rough, insecure beginnings we slowly gained sales and market share, esp. in hot pepper, cucumber, squash and sweet pepper with good growth also in eggplant, ind. tomato and watermelon. We taught a lot of new employees the business and established subsidiaries or screening stations in Italy, Spain, Florida, Mexico and California. We decided to sell the company to Limagrain in 2016 and I continued for several more years in a transitional role.
I believe it is possible to make hugely significant progress in breeding if you have enough resources, experienced employees, innovative processes and minimal bureaucracy. Magnum was able to go from zero market share, beating larger seed companies with vastly more resources, to have dominating varieties and great seed quality.
I am still interested in helping out new breeders to improve their results, helping smaller companies grow and accelerate their programs and possibly work on “orphan” or neglected crops that can become new markets or that have nutraceutical properties that can be exploited. If you have an interest or a need for any of those things, let me know.
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