The Un-Farm?

It’s been bothering me ever since a friend asked, “Why do you call it a farm when it doesn’t look like a farm?” By golly, my friend is right! The “farm” AND the blog are misnamed! Oh no! I’ve been calling it a “farm” all this time.  And then I would get questions and comments from friends such as “What are you planting?” Nothing. “What do you produce?” Nothing. We have two horses. “You should do inter-cropping.” Huh?

I’ve been calling it a farm because that’s what it used to be. At some point, the land was farmed or maybe just grazed by farm animals. But not anymore. So it should have a new, proper and more fitting name. What do you call a place that used to be farmland and is now being slowly converted into a wild bird habitat?

1. The Un-Farm – If I had a real, working farm I would be slighted by the use of the word “farm” on my place! A real farm is productive! Stuff is grown, harvested, bottled, jarred, produced! Money is earned! Our place is the opposite of that. We take care of two horses, plant trees, relax and drink beer. The husband liked to make paths with his tractor. One of my favorite moments was sitting in a rocking chair with my crochet and the two dogs lounging beside me after a morning of horseback riding.

   

   

2. Wilderness Preserve, Wildlife Preserve – This makes me think of Africa! I don’t think our place is wild enough to merit this name. Maybe if there was big game. Or if the birds were bigger.

   

3. Park – This seems closest in the Macmillan Dictionary sense of “an enclosed area of grass and trees surrounded by a  large country house” rather than the other meanings such as “open public area with grass and trees” or “area in the countryside protected by the government e.g. Yellowstone National Park”. Except that there is no “large country house”. And so that totally ruins the sense of the word.

   

4. Rest House, Vacation House – I could just go with one of these. A place where you rest and have fun vacations! And no pressure to be productive!

   

5. B——-  – Continuing with the Jane Austen theme started in #3, I could follow the literary stylistic convention used by Jane Austen of blanking out the names of places (and also people)! Of course this would only work in writing. And would require constant explaining.

Then again, the husband did mention recently that he wants to get some chickens. And we still want to plant veggies. So, we could still become a “real” farm!