Ron Ballauf lives on an 80-acre piece of paradise.

Wild turkeys and geese wander his immaculate Felton ranch, a place he’s called home since he was 4. He’s 70 now, and lives with his Rottweiler mix, Macy, who’s so accustomed to the land and the animals that inhabit it that she can walk right by grazing deer or break up the occasional turkey fight.

With a Christmas tree farm, perfectly mowed hills and uncountable redwoods, Ballauf sees the beauty in the land every day.

“I live in a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful world,” he said. “This is heaven here.”

Born in San Mateo, Ballauf moved in the mid-1940s to the ranch, where he and his parents lived with and helped his paternal grandparents. They lived off the land, growing fruits and vegetables, and raising everything from chickens to cows to turkeys.

He’s always had an appetite for adventure, and would spend time exploring the woods and playing in a nearby creek.

“I’m the one that gave my mother every gray hair that she had,” he said.

That appetite was never quite satisfied. He worked for the hardware company that is now ProBuild for almost 40 years, and would often drive the “suicide runs,” climbing the winding mountain roads in his truck.

He loved his job as a roofing specialist. Each project had unique obstacles, and he’s a problem-solver at heart.

“I loved it. Hard, hard, hard work, I loved it,” he said. “One way or another, we would get that roof up there.”

Every month he travels to the Sierra, where he rides his Suzuki dual sport motorcycle through unfamiliar roads.

“Nobody knows where I’m going — I don’t know where I’m going,” he said. “I love it.”

His father was what he called a “workaholic,” and Ballauf inherited the gene. He cares for the land, which he now co-owns with his sister, from before the sun rises until after it sets. He despises waste, on any level. He still has his teenage truck — a Willys — and has various rotary phones outside attached to hanging phone lines, so he can chat while outside. Those old phones make great hammers in a pinch, he said.

When his grandfather moved to Felton in 1940s, it was a town where everyone knew everyone. If someone needed to back their car up, others would simply move to the side of the road, he said.

“If anyone was in Felton at the same time, they’d get out of his way,” he said. “Most likely, two people weren’t in Felton at the same time.”

The San Lorenzo Valley has changed over the six-plus decades that Ballauf has been there, but one thing remains constant: his love of the land.

“This is my grave,” he said. “This is where I’m going to stay.”