“We found this place, and it was about half wooded and half agricultural land,” he said. “You walked out the front door, there was a bit of a garden and then you saw a field of corn or soybeans, depending upon what they were growing at the time.”

The couple were looking for a home surrounded by nature, a quest that resonated with how they met at the University of Oregon.

“She used to hang around the lab, and we had a group that went out into natural areas around Eugene, and she kind of joined that group,” he said about his wife. “And that’s how we got to know one another.”