The Farm
McCook, Nebraska

The north and south fields give us the opportunity to produce much of our own hay dryland.

We are especially thrilled with the farm's huge barn, built in the early 1900's. The huge timbers used in the interior posts between the stalls are really a reminder of times when everything was built to last a long, long time. The stalls are sized to hold draft teams, for working the wheat fields that early settlers relied upon as their cash crop. This country, (and this farm,) is full of history!

During recent decades the grand old barn had largely fallen into disuse... machines do most field work now. Now, all the older neighbors have said they're so happy to see someone determined to put the old queen back into activity. After giving her a new paint job, sprucing up the trim, replacing the worn out roofing, and patching up old holes, she is once more occupying her rightful (and busy,) place as Barn Central!

The barn in winter.

There are two places in the south wing where 1944 is painted in red paint, the same color as the old outside coat.

So we assume that that is the date that the south wing was added on. Or at least given a coat of red paint!

Winter '07, morning frost and fresh snow fall.

The four bedroom house is an old timey farm style, with lots of cute gables and two porches. It was also in sore need of some loving attention, (and a new roof!) but it sure cleaned up nicely, and now looks totally spruced up and spiffy! The original color was the traditional 'farm-house' white, but our Head Painter wanted to go with a little different track, and it turned out pretty well.

(As you can see, not even the dog house escaped the Painter!)

The numerous sheds were in pretty bad shape, too, but in the years that we've been here we've gotten them back up and running again. Still room for inprovement... but nothing is is danger of falling down any more!

An old rusted swing-set frame and a metal porch swing without a home, both got a coat of rustoleum, and joined together to provide a fine place to rest in the evening... with a nice view!

Then Misty's second litter, by Geronimo, and Mom requested the "River" girl kept back from there. So River Song went to be Mom's dog. ("She gardens with me" Mom used as backup.)

So... everyone here had a Tervuren but me. (Except Dad, but he's not so much a dog lover!)

For the last litter Misty had for us, we got her bred to TK Look At The Radar, before he went to Colorado. I especially wanted a black Misty-girl for the program, the last genetic match we had available to pair Misty's valueable old lines with, and hoping for a black female to provide an alternative to Fiona, just in case.

So Misty's third daughter to join us turned out to be two black little girls, impossible to choose between. We kept them for a year, and then the bigger one "de-selected" herself by being unwilling to give up looking at chickens with a certain gleam in her eye.

Contacted by a previous puppy mom who was now completely under the spell of this amazing breed, we sent the bigger girl home with her to continue to safeguard the line, and kept "Empress". (Red collar at right. > )

Where her sister had shown a marked preferrence for Abi over me, Empress seemed to be the opposite, and while it's unkind to crow over something like that, I did feel the least bit flattered that I'd been "taken a shine to".
Not knowing which was going to stay, though, I had distanced my heart a little from them in their puppy stages, and while Empress has clearly shown since that she is mine according to her, I missed out on that "puppy love" stage while trying to be wise.

Feeling that we'd capitalized on the available genetics, I didn't intend to do any more puppy-keeping.

Then Luna had her second litter out of Geronimo... and there was a little girl there that was outstanding in every way. As much as I wanted to just stay with the status quo for a while, everyone who was around this little girl advised she be kept and watched because she was something really special. She had so much bone that we couldn't tell her apart from her brother, and for a breed with marked gender differences that was an amazing amount of solidarity in a female. So "TK Fox In The Grapes" became my second female... and I'm very excited about where she might end up! Lots of herd drive, we'll see where her opportunities lie.