Ya’ll, choosing a name for our farm wasn’t easy. We pondered on all of our favorite things, thought about things specific to us, wrote down all the fruits and veggies we grow, listed all animals who depend on us around here and came up with nothing that even came close to anything we or anyone else liked.
I mean, sure, names like Apples & Berries Ranch and Animal Farm aren’t horrible, but, when we shared those names with friends they laughed. Hard. Or gave us that “bless your heart” look.
So, we continued pondering names while working our little nameless farm.
We prayed.
We searched the web.
Ideas were coming to us slower than molasses in the wintertime.
Then, one afternoon while the flock was in the fly pen, I was cleaning out the nesting boxes in the chicken coop. What I hadn’t realized is that while I had been up to my elbows in shavings, our two Brahma roosters, who gets their feathers ruffled fairly easily, had ventured in and quietly walked up behind me.
And they crowed. One right after the other. At the top of their lungs.
Half deaf and with my head now pounding from hitting it on the perch of the nesting boxes as I stood up, I turned toward them.
Cluck and Holler were standing there, brave and curious, staring up at me. As I reached down to pick up Cluck, our normally gentle, entertaining little feller flew at the top of my boot, bit into the back of my pants leg – pinching my skin in the mix – and held on for dear life!
If y’all have never been flogged and bitten by a rooster – at the same time – I’ll tell you with certainty it hurts.
Not in a child birth or kidney stone passing kind of way, but the kind of hurt that’ll make you holler like a stuck pig.
I guess my flailing around the coop with my leg in the air and screaming for Jerry was enough to scare him, because he finally let go.
In fact, he let go just in time for me to get my boot back on the ground and catch Holler in mid-flight, heading right for my waist.
Having raised both of them, together, since they were chicks and handling them regularly, I tucked him in my arm like a football and walked directly into the fly pen, carrying him in front of all the girls.
If you know anything about roosters, you know how important it is to establish yourself as head of the coop, which is done by carrying the head rooster around in your arms in front of the flock.
Well, all the girls in the pen were watching me intently, and Cluck was standing in the doorway of the coop watching as well.
I gently put Holler down, who quickly ran to the door of the coop and took his place beside Cluck. As I stood there looking at both of them, our farm name hit me like a ton of bricks – Cluck & Holler Farm!
The farm’s namesakes had been dropping hints to us at all hours of the day and night for months and we just hadn’t been paying attention.
Until now.
Cluck & Holler Farm. It just fits.
Not because it’s the name of our two feathered founders, but because it sums up the sounds you’ll hear on our little farm. From our laying hens’ cooing and clucking to the roosters crowing, the goats bleating and pigs grunting and yelling to us and or own kids’ hollering, this is us.
We’re glad you’re here. We hope y’all are, too.