Name. That. HOMESTEAD!!!

Disclaimer: I've no idea if this is the right spot for a mere curiosity that (I hope) will turn into a fun & (maybe) poignant thread. So, if moving or deleting is necessary, do as you must! :D

We've bought our plot. There are things to do that are a much higher priority, but especially since we can't move down there, for a couple more months, naming our homestead - to - be seemed like a great way to further connect us to it. In tossing around ideas, much stress-relieving silliness ensued, so when hubs proposed a name, for real, I was caught a bit off guard, and laughed. Until he told me his reasoning. I mulled it over, and his proposed moniker 'Pig's Landing' took root in my heart.

My late dad was a true character! His forthrightness often took 'innocent bystanders' aback. Sometimes, the 'not-so- innocent' ones, as well! 'When pigs fly' became a phrase we both used often, and in his later years, it became a bit of an inside joke, for us. He also had a peculiar guilty pleasure that I thoroughly loved indulging, just to see his expressions of childlike glee, that repeated, at receiving & each time he got to share them with a new victim. You know those obnoxious, talking/ singing/dancing stuffed animals, that abound at truck stops, gift shops, and the like? Yup - Daddy had quite the collection, by the time he passed, and when the sibs, all our offspring, my uncle and I gathered in his little house, to divide his belongings & share memories, these little critters brought much laughter to all, and each had it's own story, which I was begged to share, each time a new one was chosen. But, everyone's favorite (including his), by far, was the winged pig, that he'd hilariously positioned above the kitchen table, to `fly ' around the kitchen, over our heads. I shared the story of finding it in Seviereville, TN - at a comedy club, no less.

Many things, in my dad's opinion, were destined not to happen until pigs flew. Him quitting smoking, me - even considering a third marriage, him being on speaking terms with my mom (they'd divorced in '69) - much less actually becoming friends, again, and other, various things to do with most of our family, etc. So many of these things actually ended up happening, that my awesome hubs decided that all those flying pigs needed a place to land, before they wore themselves out, and along with all the hopes & dreams attached to them crashed & burned. Thus, our new home and haven for ourselves, and our loved ones is now named 'Pig's Landing'.

My question for you is, have you named your homestead? If so, what, and why?

We have a sign that says EDEN hanging from the ivy covered arch over the front entrance to our property.

There is a detailed story of Adam and Eve in the book "The Lost Books of the Bible and the Forgotten books of Eden. It describes the Garden as having 12 different trees from which they ate the fruit of each one for a month all year round. So we emulated that idea by planting a wide variety of trees. So far we have Apple Orange Tangerine Fig Almond Cherry Peach Nectarine Pomegranate Loquat Kumquat Olive and Persimmon.

Mine is W D Ranch, which is Walking Dead Ranch. It has nothing to do with zombies, although we play around with it. One storage container is referred to as the Zombie Hut.

It's named so because thats what I am. My son died about a decade ago and I am a walking dead man. No direct lineage coming after me. This land was bought afterwards and in many cases is my only living child.

i have not named our homestead, and had no idea to do so until reading this post - thanks for the inspiration Carla! - since i literally got the keys to our new place yesterday, it will take a bit to discover the character of the property and to hash out the permaculture design, but, it will have a name soon!

Maybe something to do with chickens, my favorite gardening companions...

Our place is named Toadsylvania because it is mostly wooded and we have lots of toads.

Oh yeh - the only pigs that will likely end up on this land will be either in the freezer, or as decor! Btdt & not duin it again!

Pig's Landing... What a beautiful name and story behind it. Well done naming your homestead.

I live in a suburban block and didn't name my "farm" yet. But I would choose something like:

Bird Feeder = Most of my fruit and veg have eaten by birds
Jungleurban = It is mostly like a jungle and untidy looking; this may change soon though
Black Hill = A place my family owns back in Turkey
Jannisary Inn = Based on my surname

Sharon put together some thoughts on the naming of Slow Farm a while back:

https://slowfarm.co.nz/blog-1/post-1

My wife and I call ours the Wild Ride Homestead. We always felt that our life together was just one wild ride both for good reasons (falling in love, living abroad for a year, etc.) and hard reasons (having to be long distance more than once to make work and or school work) plus having a kid adds to the wild ride nature of things. So when it was time to start our homestead the Wild Ride just made sense

Ours is Walking Squirrel Farm since for the last few winters we've seen an old squirrel that walks everywhere instead of hopping.  At least we assume he/she is old and just doesn't have the springs anymore...

We've been here 6 years, and we still don't have a name for our homestead. We did name the sloaped portion of it "Sambang Hill" becuase my son used to call salmonberries "Sambangs" when he was a toddler. Maybe we should just call our place Sambang HIll, LOL! It's got enough salmonberries to warrent the name, that's for certain!

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One of the best homestead names I ever saw was "Thistle Dew." I love it because it's descriptive of the land (full of thistle and dew) AND it's a play on words. If you say, "Thistle Dew" out loud, it sounds like "This will do." I can just see someone searching for land and saying, "This will do." It's just too perfect, and I wish I were that creative!

We've been here over 23 years and have 15 acres that we call MoonShadows Farm. The inspiration for this name came very late one August night, about a month or so after we moved in. There was a very bright full moon that was casting dark shadows from the trees and outbuildings. We just sat there admiring the beauty and decided then and there that our plot of land would be christened MoonShadows Farm.

Coincidence that this thread should pop-up now!

I’ve been racking may brain (or what’s left of it) and wearing out the keyboard trying to come up with a name for my property: it’s on the edge of a hill, slightly above a saltwater estuarine swamp (yuppies called it a ‘wetland’). Lots of native birds, frogs and too many snakes. Traditionally most people gravitate to the rear of the house where the kitchen, dining and lounge rooms are, and the views of the water which are eastwards – morning sun.

I thought of: ‘Edgehill’, ‘Waterview’, ‘Slippery Slopes’, or simply my family’s surname since the property goes back to the Grandparents. Even tried Latin, Ancient Greek, Italian, and Hindi, but none seem appropriate at the moment.

‘For My Children’ from the Neil Diamond song ‘Morningside’ also seems kind of nice because it echoes the hopes of past and present generations.

Still undecided …

An overused and old house name plate in Australia is the ubiquitous: EMOH RUO = ‘Out Home’ spelt backwards.

I hope everyone else is enjoying this thread as much as I am! Thank you all, for joining in! I think these names say so much about who we are - But, it's kinda fun to watch other people figure out the more unique ones. Some, with less obvious reasoning behind them can leave guests pleasantly stumped, until you finally clue them in.

I wonder now, how many have actually indicated with signage, art, or other means, the names they've dubbed their homesteads - and what the responses have been. I'd love to see more responses to the first question - but, I'm also thinking of some form of signage or art, for ours. I have a bunch of ideas, already - but haven't bounced any around with hubs (John), as yet. Does your name announce itself to guests, workers, family, & neighbors?

F Agricola wrote:Coincidence that this thread should pop-up now!

I’ve been racking may brain (or what’s left of it) and wearing out the keyboard trying to come up with a name for my property:

Might I suggest? Stop working at it, so hard. Give your worn out brain a breather. Let it go. The perfect name will hit you - probably out of the blue - maybe it will even hit you in a very literal sense, lol

We have a sign for our property that we also use on our business website, promotional materials and in our booth at craft shows. Here it is as a "cut out". It is not large...about 24" x 15". We designed it and had it turned into a sign by a Richard Maleck on Etsy. (https://www.etsy.com/listing/205892306/custom-farm-signscustom-outdoor-name?ref=shop_home_active_50) It is made out of some type of extremely hard foam that was carved and painted.

When Wolf and I first found what became our land, there were 3 Red tailed hawks soaring in the sky, calling to each other.
The day we received our deed the large, dead oak had 4 turkey vultures land on it and they stayed there for over two hours.
Wolf just looked at me and I said we should name this place. When she said what would we name it, I just pointed to the buzzards and said, buzzard's roost.
She wasn't sure about that as a name so I told her, we will wait and see how often they come.
Two weeks later, after the buzzards came to roost every night, she said it was a good name because it was true.
So that is how we named our land Buzzard's Roost Homestead Farm.

The roosting tree has decomposed so much there are no more branches for the buzzards to land on but they have found another dead tree they like for sleeping just a few hundred feet away from that first tree.

Redhawk

La Vida Verde en Virís

Heart Star, probably. For years my focus was trying to deal with the PTSD, DH was my refuge and loving goad and enabler. We are making our first emotional home. For a lot of personal reasons, that hadn’t happened before. We had places we slept and stored our stuff,  but it wasn’t home.

Mine came with the farm so it is pretty boring: Johnson Farm, but its been here since 1746, so there is little sense in changing it now. It will be called "Johnson Farm" even if I name it something else.

My children and I love the Brambly Hedge children's books by Jill Barklem.  So when my 5 acres of Kentucky ridgetop proved that brambles intend to take over the world, 'Brambly Ridge' seemed a perfect name.  I use the name on the label of the blackberry cordial I bottle every year.

Thank you everyone for sharing! I loved reading the reasons and rhymes behind your homestead names. I am a fan of alliteration. Our deed says we have 6 and some fraction acres, but the surveyor and the previous owner say it's 7. We have a lot of pine and oak, so therefore in the summer, we have a lot of shade. Seven Shady Acres was my thought, but my honey doesn't want to draw attention to how much land we have. I gotta respect the man's wishes, and am still working on a name. The soil is sandy loam, and growing anything (besides pines and oaks) has been a challenge (raised beds and soil remediation to the rescue). We are also at sea level, in the Pine Barrens of NJ.

I moved from place to place, homesteading it could be called, but nothing permanent until this place, the first I've been able to plant perennials. Previously I'd been on sites with existing orchards which required restoration.

Anyway, I'd name each one partly to have a name for the farm in the farmers market and on labels. The name has changed with location... Wyld Garden, Mountain Grown, Jardín Silvestre, and now Jardin Sauvage... I know, it sounds like a perfume, but it means "Wild Garden", since my polyculture sometimes looks like a wild area, and I gather wild food and herbs. Unfortunately most people can't pronounce it... sigh...

Our property was my mom's. Her name was Theron Caldwell Ris. She and my dad purchased it in 1970, and she got it in the divorce settlement four years later. Although she lived in Wisconsin, and the land is in Tennessee, she hung on to it. And added more acreage! My mom was stubborn and tenacious. So we've named the property in her honor: Theron Way.

We're also slowly naming areas of the land - just makes it easier to talk about! I'm trying to find out its history so that we can include reference to some of its historic owners. I spoke last week with the cousin of the family who owned the 40 acres bluff until 1984, when they lost it because of back taxes (not to us - we bought it in 2017). We're naming that area after them.

When I bought our 5 acres, there was a very active game trail that ran right in front of the buliding site.  The deer would saunter by, followed closely by coyotes who would pause and look at me with the "what the hell are you doing here?" look.  Hence, "Coyote Way".  I wish I could attribute some mystical Carlos Castaneda type meaning to it, but it's been more like the Simpson's and Johnny Cash's take on mystical coyotes.  Every once in a whistful while I'll refer to it as Rancho Malario, a hat's-off to Firesign Theater, my wife playing Bunny Krumhunger to my Buzz; leaving anyone under the age of 60 with a puzzled look.  

We live in a blighted city and bought the three turned under and abandoned lots behind us.  It is now UnAbandoned.  We also use that as the name of our little herbal business UnAbandoned Herbals.
Www.unabandonedherbals.com

I have come up with a hundred good names, all of which my husband has vetoed. Well, after living on our homestead for over a year, the mailbox still had the previous owner’s last name.  I found some letters on clearance, bought them, and told him we were changing the mailbox, so he needed to think of a name.  We stood at our mailbox throwing homestead names around for at least 30 minutes.  We still couldn’t agree on one, but we had the stickers and needed to cover up the other name.  Now it says “mailbox and post” and has been that way for a year.  Still no homestead name.  Ugh.

I am about a year out from buying my homestead and on schedule. I have already picked the name, subject to the approval of 'She Who Must be Obeyed'.  I intend to plant a mixed berry/ orchard shading into a firewood and food forest.  Ducks, chickens, rabbits and an annual garden will round it out.

The name I picked out this morning after reading this thread is 'The Briar Patch'.  

This fits for several reasons.  One of the first major crops I want to plant is triple crown blackberries.  Much of the properyy will have a wild look.  More important, I grew up with 'Bre'r Rabbit' stories, and passed them on to my kids.  For those who are unfamiliar, in one story Bre'r Fox caught Bre'r Rabbit and was trying to decide how to kill him.  I believe boiling, frying and roasting over a fire along with more unsavory details were mentioned.  To each suggestion, Bre'r Rabbit says "That sounds good, Bre'r Fpx, boil/fry/roast me as hot as you like, but please, please don't throw me into that briar patch.  Well, since Bre'r Fox really wants to hurt Bre'r Rabbit as much as he can, he finally snatches him up and throws him into the briar patch.  Bre'r Rabbit screams and yells like he's dying, but as Bre'r Fox is heading home feeling pleased, he walks by the edge of the briar patch and there sits Bre'r Rabbit, happy as a clam.  Bre'r Rabbit says "I was born and bred in a briar patch." and skips back into it where Bre'r Fox can't reach him.

I'm trying to get into that briar patch, and if I succeed, I'm not coming out.

When we bought our place 16 years ago our son was just 2 years old. We named our place "Talon's Glen" after him, Talon John.

"Pig's Landing"...  I like that  : )

My own little homestead is named "Wrens' Playground."  Eventually I want to have a sign made up.  The place is replete with Carolina wrens at all times of the year, which are also the state bird here.  I am very fond of them, yet make a big deal about how irksome they are.  I am mostly just playing, but in truth they are rambunctious, and they do get everywhere and make a lot of mischief.  I've had to chase them out from inside my cottage several times, which takes some doing.  Mostly it is just because they often loudly scold me when I am out and about on the property, and I take it personally to be treated as an intruder on my own land.  The reality of course is that I'd be more lonely if they weren't around, but I don't tell them that ; )

In any case, since it is clear that they consider this to be their homestead, not mine, I decided to name it for them.

If I ever do any consulting or sell my produce, I will also have business cards made up saying "Issaqueena Permaculture at Wrens' Playground" as the business name.  Issaqueena Trail is my road, named after an old legend about a Native American woman from this area.  It is an exciting legend and inspires quite a few place names around here, though sadly I understand that it's mostly apocryphal.

Rita Bliden wrote:Thank you everyone for sharing! I loved reading the reasons and rhymes behind your homestead names. I am a fan of alliteration. Our deed says we have 6 and some fraction acres, but the surveyor and the previous owner say it's 7. We have a lot of pine and oak, so therefore in the summer, we have a lot of shade. Seven Shady Acres was my thought, but my honey doesn't want to draw attention to how much land we have. I gotta respect the man's wishes, and am still working on a name. The soil is sandy loam, and growing anything (besides pines and oaks) has been a challenge (raised beds and soil remediation to the rescue). We are also at sea level, in the Pine Barrens of NJ.

'Several Shady Acres?' 😉

After thinking on it for over a year, we finally arrived at Serenity Hill, because that is what we find there.  When we move out there this spring I'm putting up a gate across the drive.  Above it is going to be a Serenity Hill sign made from branches.

Several Shady Acres?' 😉

Carla I love it! Thank you! I have a dear friend who makes signs-I might be able to pull this off in time for the holidays.(we do Christmas and Hanukkah). Set it up at the end of the driveway as a surprise.
Love all these creative permies minds!

Bob Gallamore wrote:After thinking on it for over a year, we finally arrived at Serenity Hill, because that is what we find there.

Yah!  I'm not on my place yet ongoing fulltime.  But serenity engulfs me when I step onto it.  

I read an article this morning that basically explains why I named my little patch of urban/suburban dirt "War Garden Farm"

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/12/wealthy-countries-approach-to-climate-change-condemns-hundreds-of-millions-of-people-to-suffer.html

"What we need is radical conservation now. In the World War II mobilization, broad swathes of society accepted the need for considerable lifestyle changes. We don’t have that level of urgency."

I was raised by grandparents, who were adults and extremely poor during the great depression and during WWII. I grew up with their stories. I believe we can make the world a better place, we can address widespread pollution, soil depletion, decreasing biodiversity, and have a world where everyone can live simply and happily. But we all need to do our part. Although WWII was horrible in many ways, the way that many families around the country responded was beautiful. I think we need to do something similar not just for our physical health, but our mental health as well.

We named our place..." Greener Pastures Farm ". Because except for the eight acres of wetlands, and the foot print of the house and barns, the remaining 28 acres was mostly pasture for the original dairy farm. Our goal was to develop the land gently into organic produce production, develop the spring fed ponds for aquaculture, and create a haven for pollinators in the wetlands by seeding native milkweed and wild flowers. We wanted the farm to have a "Greener" path...working with natural systems. It's far from original...and we've seen the name used elsewhere...but for us it seemed a good fit.

I am loving reading other people's clever names and fun storied. The name of our little homestead is 'Ina Bpraiseach Aoibhinn' which is Gaelic for 'In a Beautiful Mess' (Talk about folk not knowing how to pronounce it!) We are both heavy on the Irish and Scottish ancestry and well our land was (and is) rather a mess...no neat raised beds or straight rows here! Most folk, even our other homesteading friends, seem to want to tidy the place up. But she is lovely and productive and we feel blessed in our beautiful mess whether other people 'get it' or not.

Kali, my mother was a big fan of Crockett's Victory Garden. She always had a garden, although she usually got distracted from it between all her responsibilities and it didn't yield much. I didn't learn til I was much older that as a girl she pretty much survived on the garden of the neighbor lady who took her in when her own mom split (lots of stuff we didn't talk about in our family when I was little). The garden represented safety.
I also get very emotional thinking about people who come together to grow food when things get tough- I've lived in a few countries where people did this, independently feeling they needed to take responsibility for making change, and I think it represents the force for good that still exists.

Love this posts! So much heart warming beats per minute.
Our Farm Is Called Wolfberry, daughter loves wolves and wolfberries aka goji berries are something we hope to grow lots of.

We have had a homestead for a while, the name came to me one day. When I was young my grandfather ran an orchard and packing shed. Spent just about every summer there. He always called it the ranch, the name was Hanford happy apples.

I have always gravitated to smaller live stock and all of our properties we had were smaller. So I was looking at my minute horse thinking everything is half size around here. As I ducked to put hay in the manger.

So that's the name, 3HR.
Hanford Half-size Happy Ranch.

Now, we raise dexter cattle on 2 acres. New place same old line.

Brian
3HR
Thanks