I enjoyed your article on the fun farm names and wanted to submit one more.

We just purchased a home, farm site, and small 18-acre calving pasture next to our main farm. It needed a name as we just call the original farm “the farm,” and it would have been confusing when giving directions. We have a flower bed sign that says “Blachford Farms” with corn and cows in the metal cutouts at the driveway of the main place.

The previous owner of the 18-acres had lots of guineas, chicken and a half dozen peacocks. Everyone who ever drove by knew about her birds because they were always wandering into the road causing the cars to slow down. Viola didn’t mind if someone hit a guinea, but it was a major offense if someone hit one of the fancy peacocks.

Our kids are ages 3 and 2, and they loved driving up to see Viola and all of her birds before she moved. I came up with the name, “The Peacock Ranch.” It made me smile because of the colorful birds and because it’s such a small piece of ground — not really a ranch at all. I ordered another metal flower bed sign with two big peacocks on each side to match the one a quarter mile up the road at the main farm. The fun name helped get our kids excited about moving. I’m looking forward to setting it up this spring.

The irony was that we thought the house was going to “come with the birds,” but in the end she found homes for them. So when we moved in early February, we moved to a Peacock Ranch with no peacocks. Our kids were hugely disappointed and told everyone — from the librarians to the grocery clerks, “We just moved to the Peacock Ranch, but we don’t have any peacocks.” We will be looking for some new peacocks this spring!

Sierra Blachford
De Smet, S.D.