Derek and Laura’s story is braided into the history of the farm just like the roots of the prairie grasses that stretch across its fields—tough, intertwined, and built to last. Their first “date” wasn’t dinner and a movie—it was here, on the farm. For Derek, it mattered that Laura saw the place he came from, met his grandmother whose life had shaped generations, and got a glimpse of the life she might be stepping into. Laura not only understood—it resonated. She didn’t flinch at the weathered wood or the weight of history. She liked it. And that mattered. That first visit became a beginning not only for their relationship, but for a shared commitment to breathe life back into the place.
Together, Derek and Laura rolled up their sleeves and began reclaiming the old buildings one by one, teaching themselves the skills as they went—roofing, siding, painting, plumbing, wiring—figuring it out side by side with sore muscles and lots of laughter. What they didn’t know, they learned. What was broken, they fixed. Slowly, the farm took shape again, not as a museum but as a living, working place that held past, present, and future all in one breath. They were married here in the yard, under open skies. When the world shut down during COVID, they moved in, feeling safe, secluded, and deeply rooted. This farm isn’t just home now. It’s the place where their shared story began, where it continues, and where the love they’ve built shows up in every nail driven and every sunset watched, every fire enjoyed.
This spring has been one for the record books—and the storytelling books, too. On Monday, May 12th, we hit 100 degrees, a scorching, dust-blown reminder of how fierce the Prairie sun can be. Just four days later, on Friday the 16th, the high temperature barely reached 37. That’s a jaw-dropping 63-degree swing in less than a week—whiplash weather that only the Plains can deliver. You walk out one day in a t-shirt and cap, and by the end of the week, you’re back in Carhartts and watching your breath in the quonset. Out here, we joke that if you don’t like the weather, just wait ten minutes—but this? This was the Prairie showing off.
But that’s the thing about this land—it’s always had a wild streak. You can’t tame it, only learn to live with it. The extremes don’t just test your patience; they test your character. This is a place that gives you stories and scars in equal measure, where weather isn’t small talk—it’s a shaping force. And for the past 135+ years, it’s shaped my family. Through droughts, floods, blizzards, and now this kind of spring mood swing, the land has forged something steady in us. It doesn’t coddle. It doesn’t apologize. But if you stay, if you listen and learn, it makes you.
The Sheyenne National Grasslands—what we’ve always just called the Sand Hills—used to feel like an afterthought to me. As a kid, they were the “waste lands,” good for berry-picking and blasting my Honda minibike down the winding cattle trails, not much else. I didn’t understand then what they would one day mean to me. Now, these rolling, wind-sculpted hills have become my wilderness—a sacred space. When I thought about coming back to the farm full time, my biggest hesitation wasn’t about the work or the weather—it was about finding a place where I could still feel wild, where I could breathe deep and ponder my place in the whirled. And here it is, just down the road: 8 square miles of solitude, silence, and raw, unfiltered beauty. Most days, it’s just me and Navi out there, and honestly, that’s enough. More than enough. These hills don’t need elevation to be majestic. They’ve given me the wild I was searching for—and reminded me that wilderness doesn’t always roar. Sometimes it just whispers.
Navi came into our lives like a soft thunder—quiet at first, but full of power and presence. An Anatolian Shepherd rescued at age two, he carried both the weight of illness and the warmth of hope. Born on Christmas and named with a grin—Feliz Navi Dawg, though we just call him Navi—he arrived from Texas with a severe case of heartworm, the kind of diagnosis that might have been a death sentence if not for Laura’s unwavering commitment. She nurtured him back to health with a tenderness matched only by his own gentle loyalty. He healed. And in healing, he became part of the heartbeat of this farm, part of our family’s daily rhythm. Healthy now, happy, deeply loved and deeply loving, Navi is a walking miracle wrapped in fur.
He roams the land like it’s his inheritance—no fences, no boundaries, just open sky and 1000 acres of permission to be fully dog. This farm is his cathedral, his kingdom, his favorite dog park in the world. He greets the morning with a full-body tail wag that shakes him from nose to hind, then runs the perimeter like he’s announcing the day’s arrival to every rabbit, squirrel, and hawk. His stories have become part of ours—muddy paws, watchful eyes, that uncanny sense he has of when someone needs company or comfort. Navi doesn’t just live on the farm; he belongs to it, and it to him. He reminds us every day that rescue is never one-sided—that in saving him, something in us got rescued too.
