A boô (also spelled boo or boe) is an old

Saxon The Saxons ( la, Saxones, german: Sachsen, ang, Seaxan, osx, Sahson, nds, Sassen, nl, Saksen) were a group of Germanic * * * * peoples whose name was given in the early Middle Ages to a large country (Old Saxony, la, Saxonia) near the Nor ...

building where a farmer could spend the night with his

cattle Cattle (''Bos taurus'') are large, domesticated, cloven-hooved, herbivores. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae and the most widespread species of the genus '' Bos''. Adult females are referred to as cows and adult ...

if he let them graze far outside the village. The buildings, which had separate areas for cattle and farmer to live, were made with cheap materials. Walls were made of

straw Straw is an agricultural byproduct consisting of the dry stalks of cereal plants after the grain and chaff have been removed. It makes up about half of the yield of cereal crops such as barley, oats, rice, rye and wheat. It has a num ...

or braided twigs covered in cow

manure Manure is organic matter that is used as organic fertilizer in agriculture. Most manure consists of animal feces; other sources include compost and green manure. Manures contribute to the fertility of soil by adding organic matter and nu ...

loam Loam (in geology and soil science) is soil composed mostly of sand (particle size > ), silt (particle size > ), and a smaller amount of clay (particle size < ). By weight, its mineral composition is about 40–40–20% concentration of sand–sil ...

; the roofs were also made of straw.

Etymology

The word boô is a cognate of the German word 'Bude' which means 'shack'.German-->English translation of "Bude"
at odge.info. Note: 'Bude' is also used to refer to a someone's home in the abstract, as in 'my place'. The

circumflex The circumflex () is a diacritic in the Latin and Greek scripts that is also used in the written forms of many languages and in various romanization and transcription schemes. It received its English name from la, circumflexus "bent around" ...

on the second 'o' indicates that a letter is left out. In Danish, 'bo' means

house A house is a single-unit residential building. It may range in complexity from a rudimentary hut to a complex structure of wood, masonry, concrete or other material, outfitted with plumbing, electrical, and heating, ventilation, and air condi ...

. The word boô is

Low German : : : : : (70,000) (30,000) (8,000) , familycolor = Indo-European , fam2 = Germanic , fam3 = West Germanic , fam4 = North Sea Germanic , ancestor = Old Saxon , ancestor2 = Middl ...

History

A (usually unmarried)

farmer A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, raising living organisms for food or raw materials. The term usually applies to people who do some combination of raising field crops, orchards, vineyards, poultry, or other livestock. A farmer m ...

who spent time in a boô was called a boô-heer and was employed by a so-called "broodheer" (literally: bread lord). Once every fourteen days, the boô-heer would return to the farm for food supplies and clean clothes. He could keep the earnings of his only milk cow and the eggs his chickens laid. The villages of

Schoonebeek Schoonebeek is a village in the Dutch province of Drenthe. It is located in the municipality of Emmen, about 12 km (7 mi) south of that city. Schoonebeek was a separate municipality from 1884 to 1997, when it merged with Emmen. The are ...

and Nieuw-Schoonebeek in the border area with

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...

in the Dutch province of

Drenthe Drenthe () is a province of the Netherlands located in the northeastern part of the country. It is bordered by Overijssel to the south, Friesland to the west, Groningen to the north, and the German state of Lower Saxony to the east. As of Nov ...

are the only places where these buildings can be found. Because of this, Nieuw-Schoonebeek was known as Boôëndorf on the German side of the border. The boôs that can be found there today are

replica A 1:1 replica is an exact copy of an object, made out of the same raw materials, whether a molecule, a work of art, or a commercial product. The term is also used for copies that closely resemble the original, without claiming to be identical. A ...

s, which were not built in the original boôs' locations. The last genuine boô, the Wilmsboô (owned by the Drents Historical Society De Spiker) in Nieuw Schoonebeek (1640) burnt down in October 2004."Laatste originele Drentse boo afgebrand"
(Last original boo from Drenthe burnt down) from Nieuws.nl (published October 17, 2004; accessed September 6, 2006). The historical society suspected

arson Arson is the crime of willfully and deliberately setting fire to or charring property. Although the act of arson typically involves buildings, the term can also refer to the intentional burning of other things, such as motor vehicles, wate ...

as the building had no gas or electricity."Brand legt laatste Drentse boo in as"
(Fire reduces last Drents boo to ashes) from the NBDC (published October 17, 2004; accessed September 6, 2006). In March 2005, a restoration programme was begun. Before it burned down, plans were afoot to have the original building listed on the European list of monuments. Another replica, the Hekmansboô, is on the terrain of the

dairy farm Dairy farming is a class of agriculture for long-term production of milk, which is processed (either on the farm or at a dairy plant, either of which may be called a dairy) for eventual sale of a dairy product. Dairy farming has a history tha ...

"De Katshaar" (not its original location) along the Europaweg (N863) in Schoonebeek.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Boo Farmhouses Agricultural buildings