If you’re reading this, you are likely considering choosing Blue Moon for your next Miniature American Shepherd. While there is a lot of information on the website about each of my dogs, I think people would be interested to know more about where we all live. The Nelson Ranch (aka Grass Farm) is the nickname we use when we refer to the hobby farm where we live with our pack of dogs. Situated right in the heart of lake country of Minnesota, we feel so lucky to live in an area that many people travel to for vacation.
As soon as we saw this property, we knew how special it was. We were so lucky to find our dream of wide open spaces, rolling hills, woods and ponds. There was no hesitation to buy the property for our family home and not long after we moved into an existing old farmhouse on the property. A few years later, and a couple of kids too, my husband Marty built us our dream home with his father. Since then, we have raised our three children (Ray, Jake and Katie) in the same home and have made improvements along the way to the property to support our hobbies. We have had horses, cows, chickens, Guinea hens, cats, and of course dogs. We’ve created pastures, our dog yard, a big pond, and lots of paths through our woods.
In the Fall, our house is filled with blaze orange jackets, binoculars, pots of chili and campfires. In the Winter, you can find us snowshoeing through the woods and the fields with our whole pack in tow! In the spring, you’ll likely hear the four-wheeler racing up and down our driveway as chasing it is one of our dogs most favorite past times. In the summer, you can find us packing bags and coolers to load up the boat and hit a local lake for the day with a dog or two onboard. Our dogs are really a part of our family no matter what we’re doing throughout the year.
Inside our home off of our laundry room, we have what we call the Dog House. It is where the dogs are fed, groomed and sleep overnight. When they aren’t in there they can be found digging in the toy bucket by the fireplace, laying on my paperwork in the office to keep it safe, or following a foot behind me everywhere I go…and I do mean everywhere! There is no privacy with this breed, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Although our dogs frequently get to run all over our acreage, we also have a fenced in dog yard behind our home. In our dog yard, we have found fun things to add out there for the dogs over the years. They can often be found playing on the little tykes jungle gym. Some of them even go down the slide! We’ve also added some DIY agility equipment for fun. In the summer we also put out a kiddie pool although some of our dogs treat it like its hot lava, for the rest it’s a great way to cool down in the afternoon.
The Nelson Ranch is a lot of things, but to my family and my dogs… it’s HOME.