Ralph W. Ritchie has shared the last 57years with his wife and business partner, Fern J. Ritchie. They have built two homes and a Studio, written numerous books together, and shared the production of many pieces of architectural sculpture.
His professional career includes engineering consultant, university professor, research scientist, engineer, chief engineer in a plastics company, teacher in his own school, and lecturer. He has held various jobs in industry and with government agencies. His last regular paycheck came in 1965 and he has worked for a living (you know what I mean) independently ever since.
Ralph has also worked as a printer, electrician, electronics technician, machinist, foundryman, carpenter, cabinet maker, jeweler, photographer, sculptor, potter, and farmer. He has worked with computers since 1960.
Dr. Ritchie has written over 40 books, published more than thirty, and writes to transfer the experience of a lifetime to the generations to come. Ralph has degrees from The University of California, Santa Barbara, Claremont Graduate School, and UCLA.
Fern J. Ritchie has had a distinguished career as a painter, designer, sculptor, weaver, and ceramist. Her career as a painter spanned 17 States with 152 One-Man shows, plus many other exhibits. For nearly twenty years, her paintings were sold from her own gallery. She has been Editor and Business Manager for Ritchie Unlimited Publications for many years and has co-authored books with her husband. She is the author of the five book series, Incredible Edibles, on the edible parts of domestic and wild plants, their identification and propagation,
In addition she has shared a lifetime of varied experience with her husband. Realize that in addition to the creative acts mentioned, she also worked to build the home and Studio mentioed at the same time. She never stopped painting.
Her works are chronicled in Fern Joan Ritchie, Artist, and Farming is Easy. . . The Ceramics Series is a record in fact of her skills.
Fern is basically a designer. Her work is not limited by media type: jewelry, lapidary, foundry, clay, photography, textiles- both sewing and weaving, printing- silkscreen and lithography, painting- watercolor, oils, acrylics, She worked alongside Ralph to build their first home, 2500 sq ft.,and later Studios West, 7000 sq ft.
Fern taught Art in High School, College, and Art School as well as private classes in her own studio. She is a Bachelor of Arts graduate of The California College of Arts and Crafts, Oakland, California, and has a Master of Fine Arts from The Claremont Graduate School in Claremont, California.
Are We Qualified to write these books?
Fern sold paintings for nearly 40 years. many of them from our Studio Gallery. We lived from the Studio's Art products for 20 years; for over 30 years we grew our fruit, produce, and meat, plus selling the rest. We grew avocados, nuts, peaches, apricots, apples, and plums commercially.We raised cattle, sheep, goats, and pigs. We had a rabbitry of 500 + rabbits and sold 1000 pounds per month. WE have written, typeset, printed, bound, and sold books for over 25 years.
As to Disasters and Survival,
In answer to the question about qualifications to write these books, we have a summary of our direct experiences in disasters, here is a Disaster Summary and Tally covering our nearly 80 years.:
First, some comments.
Fern’s family experienced the 1906 San Francisco earthquake in San Francisco and at other locations in the Bay Area. Those experiences, while handed down have influenced the family for generations.
I was in Southern California doing much the same thing: People were still anxious about another big one like the Long Beach earthquake or the Saint Francis Dam failure, 1928, that wiped out towns and homes in Santa Paula Valley. Later, the Van Norman reservoir in San Fernando Valley, 1970, developed a crack from the quake and they emptied the entire reservoir as fast as possible. There were about 100,000 people residing below the dam.
As a kid, living in downtown LA, I would hurry toward East LA to see what bridges over the LA river failed after each downpour. We would take the train to east of LA, build a raft and float down the Rio Hondo river, only at flood stage, to San Pedro. We took a train back to downtown after a weekend of river rafting. This was before they cemented the channel to control the raging torrent.
I have also canoed along Broadway in downtown L A, to see how high the sandbag dams were in front of the stores. That was before they built a flood control drain under Olympic Boulevard - big enough for a truck to drive in.
In Santa Barbara, a flooding came up under the house and flooded our basement room where we had boxes and suitcases of our belongings stored. For 36 hours I bucket-dipped the water into an old, vertical, Maytag washer and used hoses to siphon the water outside. We learned that time that flooding can happen, even if you are high on a hillside overlooking the town.
When we were readying to move from Bakersfield, we stored our packed belongings in the garage. A flash flood came down the alley and left a foot of water in the garage with our boxes floating in it.
We moved from Bakersfield shortly before the Tehachapi Earthquake, 1952, tried to level the area. Our belongings were removed from there one week before the quake.
Living in Ontario, east of L A, gave us the experience of spending the night on the roof watching the San Bernardino Mountains burn, wondering if the fire would reach us. I have visited a friend closer to the mountains, whose home had been filled with mud the following winter.
Later, in Encinitas, north of San Diego, the winds carried embers from a brush fire to our roof. I was there, scooping them up and tossing them off the roof with a shovel, in the hot sun during the hot winds of a Santana windstorm.
Also in Encinitas we saw a waterspout come ashore from the calm Pacific, go around our acre, and demolish ten acres of greenhouse behind us.
We also saw the storm tides from a hurricane to the south come in to a beach front restaurant and wash all of the furnishings out the street-side doors.
These same winds toppled a fence on which we had mounted a 28 foot, ceramic, dragon sculpture, with the sculpture underneath.
Below our hillside on the beach front, the winds blew in the window wall in an expensive home with a magnificent view of the ocean. Then the winds picked up the roof and carried it across the street on the other side of the house.
After a flood, I fished a floating television out of the wash where homes had been built on a dry river flood plain. They don’t always stay dry. I restored the TV.
Later, I found myself being tossed like a match stick in an empty box. I was taking a shower when the San Fernando Valley, Richter 7, earthquake hit in 1970. My predicament bordered on panic as the shower door jammed. (All I could think about was meeting my maker with my pants on.)
The above was all in California. Our first winter in Oregon, we lost about 3000 plants, mostly exotics, to a deep freeze before we could complete a greenhouse. We also replaced 39 pipe fittings that ruptured from freezing.
In Mohawk Valley, in Oregon, we watched the river a mile away, overflow its banks and cover the golf course between us and the river. Near the end of that day, we began moving the contents of the ground level family room, of our split level home, to upstairs rooms. By evening a fire fighter came by and warned us that the flood level would reach 24 feet above flood stage during the night. We began to pack things to evacuate. I put out extra feed in the barn and left the gates open to the pasture. The animals sought high ground. It is very tough to lock the door and walk away.
By the time we left it was dark and most of the road was flooded. I tried to stay between the snow stakes that marked the roadway. We spent the night with friends. The next morning I called a neighbor, a hard case type, who stayed behind. The rain had stopped and the flood stage failed to reach predicted levels and our home was safe...The animals were safe and the geese were ecstatic with all the water.
Our well head, though under flood waters, had been protected as I describe in my books and was not contaminated.
We bought hospital-grade disinfectant concentrate, scrubbed the ground level room, and abandoned the carpet. We were more selective as to what went back into the ground-level family room.
I had converted a five-car garage into a studio-plus-apartment and installed fire sprinklers in the attic. During a deep freeze, then a thaw, the sprinkler system pipes burst in the attic and flooded the apartment That required stripping out all insulation and replacing damaged drywall. The carpet was saved by blowing air under the carpet from hot air blowers.
This same apartment suffered another flooding when strong winds blew off a portion of the roof and rains flooded it again. More drywall replacement and carpet drying.
Our next emergency, in Springfield this time, was a toxic spill nearby that caused us to leave for 12 hours. Again, our home was safe for our return.
During a deep freeze, the 9 foot-wide living room window was stressed enough to crack its entire length, about a foot above the window bottom, and we were faced with exposure and heat loss during a cold spell. That is when I discovered that most glass contractors no longer replaced existing residential windows and I had to remove the broken glass and install a new window myself. (The next season, the other large front window cracked the same way, attributed to old, brittle glass under stress. )
Later during the same cold season we had a flue fire that was hot enough to melt the metal pipe liner in the old chimney, in spite of regular, seasonal flue cleaning. We decided at that point to remove the wood stove altogether and install a wood pellet stove.
Had enough? Here is a tally:
Fires - forest and brush, 2 (no home involved fires, except the flue fire mentioned above )
Hurricane (edge) 2
Flood 5. (Everywhere we have lived.)
Mankind originated flood 2
Waterspout (tornado? ) 1
San Fernando Earthquake 1
Bakersfield earthquake ( near miss) 1
Fullerton earthquake. 1
Deep Freezes 4
Auto accidents with injury - none. (Over 40,000 miles per year consulting).( 1 fender-bender.)
Aircraft accidents, none ( almost weekly, mostly monthly, flights while consulting )
Forced evacuations 2
High Winds with damage 3
Deep Freeze with damage 4
Power Outages everywhere we have lived; at least 1 per month in Encinitas. Many more in Oregon during winters.
We ARE qualified to write about survival and disasters. You can also understand why we urge people to prepare ahead of time for what may happen. Mother Nature has her own schedule, very rarely at your convenience.