Once we became owners of the farmhouse and farm, I immediately started thinking of a name.
Why was this important to me?
Well, I knew I wanted to document all our experiences for the family and friends who aren’t here with us and for anyone else who would want to follow along in this journey.
To do that in a public way, I knew I needed to start a second blog to capture everything about this little road we are on. It didn’t make sense to tie it in with The Everyday Mom Life based on the content each site would contain. I knew I needed a new name to identify the property and create a home for all these experiences.
Thus, I had to name the farm to get this going. I could have gone with something generic and then changed it, but you never really want to change your name. It’s a pain.
Naming the blog after the farm just made sense.
But what to name the farm? The previous owners called it New Covenant Farm. While I’m sure the name suited their family and experiences beautifully, it was a bit much for us.
I wanted a name that was more about the property and the land. I wanted it to say something about this little corner of the Earth that’s now ours.
This presented a problem for me because we hadn’t had any experiences with the property yet and we had only been on it a few times.
I sat there looking at some of the photos I had taken and noticed the large tree in the front yard. I had noticed it the day we were there for our first showing and liked that it was mature and large. It fit with the age of the house.
Looking at it again, I wondered what type of tree it was, so I asked on a plant identification board on Facebook (Seriously, this group is a godsend and it’s filled with so many knowledgeable people! I’ll be making good use of them in spring.).
The consensus was that it was some kind of Sugar Maple but the group asked for a close up of the leaves. I didn’t have one, but the name Sugar Maple stuck with me.
When we came here to close on the property, I took a photo of one of the fallen leaves and the group confirmed the earlier suspicions. The tree is indeed an Acer saccharum and a type of Sugar Maple tree.
Sugar Maples include a family of trees and a few varieties and grow in the predominantly Northeastern part of the United States and into portions of Canada. They can grow as far south as Tennessee.
They produce strong timber and maple syrup. It’s technically the state tree of New York but this Michigan tree seems to have done okay here.
I loved the idea of naming the farm and farmhouse after this tree that had been there since the beginning. Although we don’t know the exact age, we suspect it has been here since the house was built. However, we will dig more into that in the spring.
At first Kevin wasn’t on board with the name. He wanted something funny and cheeky – typical him. He came around when he realized he could add maple syrup to the beer he plans to brew.
Once I had a name, I began searching for available website domains that would also allow me to have a comparable name on social media. Since Instagram is a large part of my life for The Everyday Mom Life, I knew I’d be capturing daily life in pictures and smaller, bite-sized for Instagram too.
Sugar Maple Farm domain was taken and so was the name on Instagram, but Sugar Maple Farmhouse was available.
I’ve been asked why I decided on Sugar Maple Farmhouse for the blog versus Sugar Maple Farm and this is part of the reason why. Although, I was able to purchase Sugar Maple Farm from the owner and now own that too. It will send you here. 🙂
However, I also feel like we aren’t a “farm” yet. We don’t have animals. We moved here in the dead of winter and we aren’t growing anything yet. Calling ourselves a “farm” didn’t feel appropriate to me yet.
Lastly, I do hope that a community of would-be farm buyers, homesteaders or farmhouse lovers will follow along with us and I know more people will search for “farmhouse” (Thanks, Joanna Gaines) verses farm. And it’s not just about them following us, I need their advice on things too.
That said, since I own both domains now, there’s a good chance I will refer to this place as both. I will call it a farm and I will call it a farmhouse. The content here will be weighted between the life inside our farmhouse and the life on the farm itself. Not surprisingly, during the Michigan winters life indoors will be more of the focus and when spring hits we will get outside and include you in all the excitement there as well.
As far as the Sugar Maple goes, I’m hoping to get an arborist out here in the spring to help us take care of it a bit better and take a look at the other trees on the property. We haven’t taken the time to look closely at the others yet and I’m excited to see what we discover.
In the mean time we need to give this one some needed TLC. The tallest point is actually dead and needs to be removed. The outside branches of the tree are alive and well and I’m hoping that once the dead section of the tree is removed, it will continue to flourish and be our stake in the ground – the symbol that says “home” here at Sugar Maple Farmhouse.
See why we bought the farm here!
I was reading your story on how you named your place. I want to name mine too and was wondering about how you find out if someone else has used the name,you mention it in your story. Please reply. Thanks. Sherrie