Naming the Farm

I've a touch of the ditz today.  While thinking about our "farm" and the naming there of, my mind has wandered off on several different tangents.

Like:

• Naming the farm which is not to be confused with buying the farm.  Which, duh, of course, makes me wonder where & when the saying "bought the farm" came to mean to die. 

Fast forward 27 seconds and you can wonder no more! Here's the answer.

Of course that begs the question

• So what makes a farm a farm? We aren't growing food here yet.  I haven't got any farm animals other than our eight pullets.  We grow a ton of apples and cherries in our orchard but we don't sell anything.
• Is a "farm" a huge commercial operation? Someone who has hundreds or thousands of acres?
• How is Hobby Farming defined - is that what we would then be? Should we, could we define ourselves that way? How many acres do you need to be considered a hobby farmer? Why the distinction between the two?

Those are just a few of the things that have been running through my noggin since yesterday when I told my Beloved that we have to come up with a name for our farm.  Which isn't really a farm per se.  It's a 151 year old farmhouse on four acres that used to be a real working farm (as opposed to a fake idle farm?), with a dairy barn, pole barn, chicken coop and orchard.

The point to all of this rambling: How does one go about coming up with a name for their farm? 

Veering off in a totally different direction now!

Two weeks ago we hand done some pruning in the orchard and instead of just dumping all of the apple wood branches and limbs I asked my Beloved to pull a ramp that lead up to some barn doors over under the lean-to so we could put it all in one spot.

This is what we found:

Note the size of the hole and the bones

AaaaAaAAhhHhhh!!

He kept insisting that it was a goblin's lair.

He put two giant boulders in front of the hole   All that night I felt wretched because I thought "What if it's a mama and she and her babies will be stuck in there?" and "they'll die of starvation!" Honestly, I was seconds away from tears.  My Beloved held no such compunction and offered to go outside with me saying that he would hold the flashlight while I moved the rocks.  How chivalrous of him!

But I haven't been back to the barn since, I'm too creeped out by what I might find.

Have you named your farm? Your Homestead? How did you come up with the name?


Shared with Homestead Barn Hop

Laundry Room Makeover

Things that I have only two pictures of: the laundry room before its face lift.

Sorry about the blur.  After a run in with a frappuccino my
little point & shoot sometimes likes to take
"Soft Focus" pictures.

The view from the kitchen.  Have I mentioned that, at least the last owners, were heavy smokers? And they had a wood/oil burning furnace in the basement?

Things that I have have no pictures of: the laundry room during its transformation.  Oops.

Things that I have a million billion pictures of: the laundry room after.

You want to look at a half dozen ooookay, ten or so? Yes? Great!

Imma tell ya right now - I love, have from the second I saw them, lovelovelove the big wide horizontal boards

The view from the kitchen

The only thing that we really did was paint, new subfloor/floor covering, electrical of course and some plumbing fixes. My mom randomly purchased the cart from a shop owner because she thought it would look great in the house; it does.  It was so horrendously nastyfilthygrody that it took both her and I with our Mr. Clean Magic Erasers and a two gallon bucket of water over an hour to just clean the grime off.  It houses cleaning rags, clothes pins, assorted laundry stuffs, the iron, yaddayaddayadda.  It's nice because on the left side it has two small hooks you can hang things from (the big duster for ceiling fans was drying at the time) and on the right a small towel bar.

Moving clockwise:

Mah aprons.  I love me some aprons!

At first I wasn't so sure I liked what the electrician had done with the light switch there.  He had asked me if it was okay and in a moment of "Oh, I don't care, just get it done" flippancy said okay.  But I do like it.  I do like the industrial look of the conduit and the box mounted on the outside and not set it.  Whodathunkit!

Things to point out here: nothing.  Other than the nifty shelf that runs around a fair bit of the room and that our Realtor told a client whose house she had just sold, that she knew a couple that would buy the 2 month old washer and dryer because he couldn't take them. A measly $600 later and they were ours! Ka-ching!

Continuing on our clockwise journey

Ooooh! Exciting!

So yeah, there are those things.  I splurged on the laundry tub with the cabinet.  I figured if it's going to be on the main floor and out in the open, it's gotta look nice.  One of the projects on our list of Never Ending Projects is to somehow hide the dryer vent hose and that large gap.  Looks wonky.  And the cord, ugh! That is the longest electrical cord you can buy for the washer and I hate that it hangs there.

Looking up

Canning Jars = Happy

Since I filled up most of the shelf with jars, and a shelf in the mud room (easier to reach) is crammed with them I've resorted to storing them in the basement too.  I have to stop.  Eventually.  'Cause there'll be no more room!

Ahhhh.  Otis' art work which cheers me endlessly

I didn't take a picture of the ironing board because it is the DMZ of Clean Laundry 'round here.  And y'all don't wanna see that!

Miscellaneous picture - because this is my blog and I can

Actually, you can see the ironing board there against the back wall.  And my bucket.  Me likes my bucket. When we lived in the condo and the laundry was downstairs the bucket was the shiznit because we use cloth napkins.  And what better place to catch napkins, dishtowels and tablecloths so they don't get mixed in with stinky, dirty diesel fuel and axle grease encrusted uniforms? Nowhere. 

Two Fine, three more pictures then I'm done, promise.

The colors are perfect for the room as is the subject matter - double score!

My mom got me this canvas for Christmas, it's awesome. It actually has little LED's in behind the flames and they flicker. Although, I've never made them to flicker for longer than 3.2 seconds to show someone. Thanks Ma!

Aprons!

I love aprons.  About half of mine are vintage.  I am always on the look out for them at the Salvation Army or Goodwill.

Last one!

A gratuitous apron picture. That cream colored apron with the black writing is my Beloved's which was the impetus for me trying fish & chips for the first time ever!