Naming Our New Property

I’m talking all about the process of naming our new property. Continue reading to see what we chose and why it’s so special to us!

Now that Todd and I have a clear direction for our property and the home we’ll be building, the time has come to officially give it a name.

There’s something in a name, isn’t there? It adds meaning, hope and love.

I’ve always wanted a property we could name. A place where we could establish roots and create our own history. And while the property we purchased is already full of family history with it being in my family since 1964, we wanted to inject our own roots and our own personality as well.

This property brings so much joy to both of us and we have such big plans and ideas for what we’d like to see this property turn into (more on that soon!), that it felt like our name also needed to include what we envision the property to be, while still honoring the past.

I guess you could say that’s the overall theme for our entire property, and the home we’ll be building. We want to honor the past and combine all the historical elements we love with the lifestyle we live today.

I see it being a beautiful celebration of past memories and moments gone by, combined with how we currently live and what we value from life.

So let’s start there.

Naming Our New Property

In total, we have 40 acres of beautiful property. Twenty of that is farm ground that my dad and brother take care of and farm, and the other twenty has the most beautiful hillside draw with great pasture and the perfect place for us to dig a large pond in the future.

We also inherited a very old plum thicket where my dad picked plums with my great- grandma when he was a boy. It melts my heart to know Ania will also pick plums off the very same plants.

Hearing my dad tell stories about how my great-grandparents farmed the property, the kind of equipment they used, and what types of crops they grew makes my heart happy. I cherish these strong family ties.

My great- grandmother, Alta, was one of the hardest working women I’ve ever know. And even though I really only remember her in her older years when her health started decreasing, I can still remember sitting at her kitchen table. She loved to talk and I can still hear her voice and remember her stories. I loved her, deeply.

Her roots are in this very ground. Her cellar was full of plum jelly (among many other things), with the very plums from this property. She and my great grand-dad used wagons to load sack of onions out of the fields. Their hands worked the land… and then they passed it onto my dad who has done the very same thing.

As a small girl, my mom would load my brother and I up and we’d head over to this property to help irrigate the fields and to pull weeds out of the bean fields. I didn’t love pulling weeds at the time, something my brother reminds me of often, but even I walked these same fields as a young girl.

That’s the thing about farming, or caring for a property, you can’t work the land without including yourself in it.

Todd and I can’t wait to add our own roots into the mix and see the beautiful ways we can enhance and grow on what’s already there and what makes this property special.

We have our work cut out for us, but it’s work we’re excited for and work that brings great reward. In so many ways, I’m ready to get back to my roots.

I want life to slow down a little bit and to become more wholesome. I want to appreciate the past and my family heritage and walk the very same paths as my family before me.

So, when it came time to name our property, we set out to find a name that would encompass all of those things:

Wild Plum Acres combines the old and the new and it holds tight to moments in time we wanted to capture and display.

With Wild Plum Acres, I’ve also added “Fields of Grace”. Not only does it tie in with our actual farm ground, but it speaks to our hearts about the grace of God and His love for us. We’re not always perfect, and yet, His grace gives us the undeserving love we all need.

My hope is that our property is rooted in fields of grace and that as we build a life here, we’ll always remember the grace that was given to us and the grace we should give to others.

I look forward to sharing more about Wild Plum Acres soon… we’re only just getting started.