Comments on: Don’t Call Me “That Blogger from Kansas”

By: Naming Nature | Backyard Mama

Naming Nature | Backyard Mama — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 02:05:10 +0000

[...] was inspired to write this post after reading Don’t Call Me “That Blogger from Kansas” and I want to share with you a part of our [...]

By: Alison Kerr

Alison Kerr — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 00:04:03 +0000

Shannon, I wish I’d had a party tree when I was little. You are doing great work with kids. Thanks for sharing.

Ellen, it’s interesting that areas of the country which have been ‘civilized’ for longer have this kind of history of place and object name. I’m guessing it’s to do with names being really useful when foot transport was common and maps less so. I can only imagine that the first Americans who were here when Europeans arrived had many names for places and landmarks which have been lost. I agree with you, names link us to our community and our past. Sadly, there seems less use for field names once we have a comprehensive system of road names. I think it’s a loss.

By: Ellen Sousa

Ellen Sousa — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 17:50:48 +0000

Alison – we have a rock down by the street that juts out and looks like a pulpit…I call it Pulpit Rock In New England it seems that every field or woods has a name which evokes a sense of history and links us to our community and past. Many of these names are not on the map, so they live on only in oral history. It’d be a shame to lose that history…

By: Shannon

Shannon — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 23:14:40 +0000

Alison- I love this post what a great reminder and yes, we have the “party tree”- where the children have a tea party almost every day, we have “the climbing tree” and yup you guessed it, the children climb on it. We went on a walk yesterday to a new corner of the yard, and I can’t for the life of me remember what they called it, but it has a name too. One unsung benefit of this naming process is that it also teaches children their local geography. I might write a post about this this week just to build on what you have written here- but at each stage of development children become increasingly connected to their community. It’s a wonderful and natural process to name these places. Yeah! Thanks for the post! Love it!
Shannon ´s last blog ..Free as a Bird

By: Alison Kerr

Alison Kerr — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 20:58:58 +0000

“Dead Man’s Hill” – I love it! Doesn’t that sound like a place you’d want to protect from development, a place to revisit, somewhere to connect great memories with? Kids give things the best names.

By: Robin

Robin — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 20:21:34 +0000

We live very close to the town I grew up in, and when we drive by the sledding hill that we named “Dead Man’s Hill” as kids, my boys always crack up. There’s nothing dangerous about it, but it’s the place where all the kids in town would go to sled, and there’s no cooler hill to sled down than one named “Dead Man’s Hill.”

I’ll have to ask my boys if they have names for places in our town.