Today we’d like to introduce you to Mike And Gina Kindscher.
Hi Mike and Gina, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
In 1988 my husband and I purchased a old abandoned turkey ranch. I was pregnant at the time. I did not really want to be hiking all over the hills of Aptos but there we were envisioning our dream horse Ranch. I grew up on a horse ranch, but I certainly I never thought I would be thinking about building one as an adult. Both my husband and I worked tirelessly for years to build Barns paddocks arenas everything you need to have a horse Ranch it was certainly a labor of love and we also started our family. And so that was the beginning of Morning Sun Ranch. We had two kids, a boy and a girl, and they have lived on the ranch, their whole lives and are now following in the footsteps of my husband and myself with my son Austyn being a contractor/engineer and my daughter Genae being a riding instructor and Horse Trainer. Our whole life has evolved around this Ranch and Horses and the western way of life, then around eight years ago, my husband needed to slow down pull back from working outside of the ranch. It was a bit of a transition, and without so much of the physical demands he was able to start being creative again, and he started collecting agates. At the time he had no idea what he was going to make, he just loved them and thought they were beautiful. Not too long after that I was searching online for a Scarf Slide for my daughter as she likes to wear them with her wild rags which is part the vaquero style
Attire which is a large part of our background in horses. I could not really find one that was affordable and it was very frustrating and so I asked my husband if he thought he could make one using an agate stone. Not only did he make one for her, but he started making lots of them I was not sure what to do now as I was working full-time at the ranch, but we were starting to have lots and lots of items made with agate stones. This is when I decided to open up an Etsy shop and Old Hands Creations was created. It wasn’t much at first just a fun way to make a little money for Mike’s creations. Not too long after a freak storm took apart half of our large barn it was a horrible time for our family with horses were displaced, income disrupted, we weren’t sure what would happen. We loved the old barn, It had a very quaint nature about it and a lot of history and now it was gone. We were fortunate that insurance provided enough funds to rebuild, and my son did the work with the help of his dad. Once we were on the other side of that we were totally blessed having a new barn and went full steam into our Etsy shop. It’s now quite large and we have over 7000 sales to date. We don’t do as many creations from agates anymore but have expanded into all kinds of other creations. So here we are in our retirement age but not really slowing down still having the responsibilities of the Ranch and also now quite thriving Etsy shop. We spend a lot of our days together in the office, Mike making the creations and I do photos and get them ready for Shipping. Most of our items are Horse related or have a western feel to them. We now have the largest selection of Scarf Slide anywhere on the Internet!
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
There’s been a lot of bumps in the road running a horse Ranch is very hard work. In the early years, there were lots of financial struggles. You don’t make a lot of money taking care of other people’s horses plus we were still trying to build the Ranch bigger so every dime we had went right back into the ranch. But the biggest challenge was when the roof blew off the big barn it took several years to rebuild and to get everything back to normal again. There have been some health challenges with my husband in the last 10 years or so and those have caused some big challenges as well. The most recent struggle was when my daughter lost her twin girls our granddaughters we are still in the middle of that struggle. I had to fully take over the lessons and running of the ranch while also grieving and helping my daughter recover.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Morning sun ranch ?
Our business name is Morning Sun Ranch, and we are situated in the Aptos Hills on about 30 acres. The bulk of our business is Horse Boarding, but we also do training and teach lessons. Specializing in teaching good horsemanship principles and also horse care. About 15 years ago we started turning in a direction of doing lots of rehabilitation for horses that have been either abused misunderstood or just broken from the years of use. Together, my daughter and I work as a team she mostly does the riding and training at this point in time I focus on management and the nutritional aspect of the Horses. Together, we help lots and lots of horses and people that own them. After the loss of our granddaughters the focus is starting to shift even more, and we would definitely like to have the horses be more therapeutic, even though they always have been all these years. We will see where this new chapter leads us. It’s definitely a family affair with my husband and son maintaining the big parts of the ranch with tractor work keeping the roads maintained, trees cleared trails hay and shaving deliveries etc
Is there something surprising that you feel even people who know you might not know about?
I think the most surprising thing to people is that Michael is such a great artist. Most people know him as “Tractor Mike” and had no idea he had so much talent and loved working with his hands so much, he especially loves making creations out of wood.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://Www.morningsunranch.com
- Other: https://Oldhandscreations.etsy.com
