Stoneyfield

When I registered in the American Dexter Cattle Association they asked me what my farm name was. Well, I thought to my self ... "I don't have a farm, how can I have a farm name!" So, I told them that I didn't have one yet, but that I would come up with one soon. In the registered purebred livestock world you must have a farm name to identify animals bred on your farm. For example our heifer's name is RAD's Victoria because that is where she was bred and born. There was no hurry for us to come up with a farm name because we won't have to worry about having our name in front of a registered animals name until spring 2009.

That being said, I wanted to come up with a farm name anyways. I am sort of particular when it comes to things like farm names or names in general. Case in point, it took me over a month to come up with a name for our new puppy so we just had to call her pup for awhile. I wanted a name that had meaning, that didn't sound weird, and wasn't really tied to a certain place because we don't even know where our farm will be located. Also, because I am very passionate about history in general and America's founding history in particular I wanted it to be a name with historical significance. I thought through quite a few names, but couldn't settle my mind on anything.

Last night as I was trying to fall asleep I had a thought. Why not name my farm after John Adams' farm. John Adams was a founding father, he loved farming and agriculture, and he had a small farm that he personally worked on rather than a huge estate with many slaves or lots of workers. I grabbed my John Adams biography by David McCullough and started searching. It seems that President Adams originally named his farm, Peacefield. That seemed like a great name, but I wanted to see how many people were already using it ... I guess a lot of people had the same great idea that I had because there are quite a few "Peacefield Farms" out there. But, I remembered reading something about President Adams' later in life changing what he called his farm in journals and personal letters. It seems that later on, among other names, he began calling his farm, "Stoneyfield". A quick internet search came up with not much. Just some yogurt company that spells it without the "e".

So, Stoneyfield it is. I like the sound of the name ... it sounds, "old" ... it is simple and isn't tied to a certain farm ... and, it has great historical significance. Hopefully we can use this as our farm name now and in the future.

Not much farming or research in this post, but now that we have a name maybe I will think of setting up some sort of advertising or marketing for the calves and such that we will have in the spring. Maybe we could even sell some of our eggs using this farm name?