It was back in the spring of 2015. Greg was heading into his third season as an organic veggie farmer. Because farmers usually have too much time on their hands (HA HA!), he decided that in addition to growing veggies, he wanted to raise some livestock on the side.
At this point, we were relatively new to Rochester. We had moved here just 2 years prior and didn’t know many people and this meant that we had absolutely no customer base. I assumed we would start with 20 or 30 turkeys but Greg decided that we would raise 150 turkeys and then added on some chickens and ducks. All the sudden, we had a business and that meant we needed a website and by golly we needed….a NAME!
I remember I came home from my day-job a few weeks after we purchased our first turkey poults and Greg had something on his mind. As I’ve said before, he is a thoughtful guy and when he has something to say, you can usually tell. He told me that he had been thinking about our new business and had decided to name it Stonecrop Farm.
Stonecrop isn’t just the name of a pretty succulent. In my family, it signifies so much more. It was the name of my Dad’s childhood home, located just 3 miles from where I grew up. It was where my grandfather taught my Dad to care for horses and chickens and passed on his passion for gardening. It was where I learned to swim and where most of our family gatherings took place. Stonecrop could, at most, have been considered a homestead, but it’s our closest family connection to farming.
Naming a business is a pretty big deal. It’s got to be easy to say, memorable, and meaningful. When it came time to name our farm, I left the decision entirely to Greg and I think he hit the nail on the head. Don’t you?
Your Farmers,
Greg & Jenney