When we made our first -- and so far only -- alpaca buy this past year we started with three, and that's still all we have right now. We don't have as much room as the folks we think of who are, well, "real" alpaca farmers. At most we could likely support up to five alpacas comfortably on our little pasture of about three-quarters of an acre; anything more than that and we're edging into possible dry-lot territory, something we're not interested in doing since we don't plan to be what we consider a "real" farm (i.e., one that breeds and sells them or at least has a number more substantial than three). From the start this was an enterprise we embarked on because it would give me a constant source of my own fiber to spin -- some of which is certainly selling (sometimes even just the unspun fiber, such as the couple of ounces of combed top from Silverton earlier this year) but none of which will ever likely fully pay for the boys' room and board, nevermind make us any actual money. And we also embarked on it for fun and for the experience of raising farm animals, both of which we've gotten back in spades.
Despite us feeling that we're not really an actual farm per se one of the questions that Jody posed to me when we bought our boys was what our farm name is so that she can make the appropriate transfer in the boys' registration documents. Wow, a farm name. A farm name? We have to actually come up with a farm name now! Of course we'd joked for a while about what our fantasy farm name would be, throwing around ideas, most of them silly and not something we'd really consider but a few of them worthwhile. We talked about it like people talk about the names they'll give their children years before they actually have any. Then suddenly that once-unattainable idea of owning real alpacas was suddenly not so unattainable and we actually went and bought some and now, whoa, we have to come up with a farm name! Quick!
Much to my dad's delight we had kicked around the idea of calling ourselves 12 Bar Ranch. Back when I lived in Wyoming I noticed that every ranch seemed to have some variation on a bar theme -- Vee Bar Ranch, Two Bars Ranch, you get the picture. Being that we love blues and it runs strong in the family we thought it would be cute and funny to name our ranch 12 Bar. You know, as in twelve bar blues? And of course we'd name all our alpacas after famous blues artists: Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Johnny Winter...and the icing on the cake would have to be, of course, an alpaca born on our own farm who we'd name Rock n' Roll, and whose mother would naturally have been named Blues.
(That thing about talking about kids and plotting things out way early? Yeah, I wasn't kidding.)
Anyway, the idea is great. But I'm not sold on it. (Sorry, Dad. I know you're disappointed.) It's a stretch. But there is another idea that I'd been kicking around that I thought lent itself more to yarn labels, which honestly is really the main way I'd be using this farm name anyway. That idea was to steal from World War II-era squadron names and nose art.
Nearly every alpaca farm name I've come across has been the same: [Geographic Location] Alpacas. We didn't want to do that. With both of us having experience in advertizing, marketing, and graphic design we knew we could do better than that. I've always, always loved WWII-era nose art and the awesome legacy of squadron names. What could be more awesome than a logo patterned after some great nose art and a cool squadron name to go with it?
I sketched out a very rough version of a logo based on one of the best non-sexy-ladies nose art imagery I've come across (hey, I've got no problem with sexy-lady nose art, it's great; I just don't really think it applies to alpacas, you know?): Maloney's Pony. (My version is an alpaca chomping on a cigar, an alpaca that looks really to lead his boys into battle.)
Now to come up with a name.
I figured a good place to start was to look up a list of squad names. And wow, there's a lot more than I thought there was. Seems like every military group of units had a name for themselves. I gathered up the best of what I found, the ones that seemed like they might spark something interesting, and these are the ones -- real names -- that I saved:
COMMON:
The 12th Roughnecks
The 51st Roughnecks
BRITISH:
The King's own
The Kaiser's Own
The Fighting 51st
The Glorious Glosters
The Dirty Dozen
The Dirty Half Hundred
The Iron Regiment
The Havercake Lads
The Lancashire Lads
The Ragged Brigade
The Holy Boys
The Ramnuggar Boys
Rusty Buckles
The Saucy Seventh
Titchburns Own
CANADIAN:
The Crazy Eights
The Dirty Thirty
Broo's Crazy Devils
The Horny Lornies
Haha, the Horny Lornies.
Anyway, this list sparked a few ideas:
Trail Grazers
The Glorious Grazers
Inglorious Grazers
The Humming 51st
The Humming Dozen
The Dirty Herd
I'm pretty partial right now to The Glorious Grazers. Inglorious Grazers is great but it's probably stealing too much from the recent Tarantino movie.
I'm continuing to mull it over a bit before I decide on anything in case any further ideas pop out. You're welcome to contribute, with the caveat that I cannot promise you any shares of massive alpaca farm profits as there will not be any, so ideas should be contributed at your charity and peril.