Our Farm Nowadays
Our farm is situated on a secluded spot near Cerknica lake. It belongs to a smaller village called Šteberk which belongs to the village Lipsenj (560m). The village is about 1-2 km from the main road. You can come to us from the village Lipsenj or from the village Žerovnica. Šteberk is placed under the Križna gora mountain (857m) in a small basin sorounded by forest. You can reach our home by car, by bike, on foot, by bus or train. If you travel by train, you must step off the train in Rakek, then you have about 15km with a bus. If you travel by car, you turn off the highway in the exit Unec, then you have 19km to our place. From our farm the road leads forward to Stari trg pri Ložu (8km) and further on to Croatia. The border crosspoint is in Babno polje (20km). The first neighbouring village is Lipsenj (1km), which is distant about 3km from the headquarters of the Local Community in Grahovo and 8km from a bigger town Cerknica. Our farm is called »Tekavča ograda« by the locals.
History
»Tekavča ograda«, a farm with acommodation, has a historical significance. The first part of the name »Tekavča« goes back into the 12.-13. century. We can track down the first mentioning of the castle Šteberk (Steegberg) in the year 1274. Until 15. century the castle belonged to knights of Šteberk, liegemen of Oglej, later on to the vassals of lords of Devin and counts of Gorica and ligemen of the counts of Celje and Hapsburgs. The castle was abandoned in the 16. century (maybe after a catastrophical earthquake in 1511). The legend tells that the castle was burned down by Erazem Predjamski. You can find more information regarding to the castle Šteberk on the website: www.slosi.info. Besides there was a new mansion built in 1635 named Spodnji Šteberk (Steegberg). All you can see nowadays from both of them are ruins.
However the surrounding houses on the foothills of a mountain (3 houses) and our house (1km from the castle) served to the knights of Šteberk and were subjected to them. Thatswhy even today the housenames reflect the remote history. »Mežnarčkovi« – there were »Mežnarji« (bellringers) at this house. The bellringer prepares everything necesary for the mass and other religious ceremonies. The duty of the people from this house was to ring a bell and to inform the counts and knights. The next house is called »Urbkovi«. The name derives from »urbar«, urbar is a person who takes care for transport with horses and all the other needs or work related to it. The third house is called »Malnarčkovi«. The word derives from »malen«, »mlin« which means a mill. They had a mill at this house and it’s own fish pond. They both exist even nowadays. Last but not least here is our house called »Tekavči«. The original name was probably »Tkalčevi« but it was transformed to »Tekavči« because of the dialect and easier pronounciation. The word derives from »tkalec«, which means a weaver. This indicates that there were weavers at our house. The second part of our house name »Tekavča ograda« – »ograda« means a fence and is added to our name because our property is surrounded with a natural fence of hazel trees in a shape of a circle.
