Red Bell Farm

Perhaps you don't know this about me, but I like to name the places where I live. My home after I was divorced was 30 acres, a house and a barn in rural Lafayette, Colorado. The first morning I lived there I got up and roamed the property. Winding along an old fence was a lovely old-fashioned yellow rose. I named that place "Yellow Rose Ranch."

When I moved up to Nederland and into the cute little A-frame house, I could lie in bed at night and look at the stars through the window in the side roof of the "A." One night I watched the stars of the Big Dipper move across the sky. I named that house "Seven Stars" for those stars that kept me company that night.

I came to my Iowa acreage in June 2003 determined to find a very romantic name for my property. I've always loved the word 'Prairyerth' from a book of that name by William Least Heat-Moon; this name really didn't fit. The creek that forms my western property line is called Haybranch Creek, but that didn't seem just right either. My 12 acres are all that's left of an 80-acre original 1850's homestead. The old farm house was torn down in 1980, and my house was built on its site. The old 'cave' is in my backyard, as is the red bell pictured above. It's mounted on a post and was used to call the hired hands (i.e. the kids working in the field!) in to dinner. It took me a couple of months to come to terms with it, but Red Bell Farm was the winning name. (I really wanted Prairyerth to fit, darn it!) Last year I tied Buddhist prayer flags to my bell. In December Mother Nature decorated it with a glittering display of ice. Red Bell Farm finally seems just right.

Just so you know....the only things I 'farm' here are a few wonderful Iowa sun-ripened tomatoes in the summer and an overwhelming crop of weeds in the pasture that lingers 'way into winter.