Farm Signs

We’ve had 3 signs since we bought the farm in 1983. We made 2 of them ourselves. Here’s some history on them.

The signature white oak

We have a huge old white oak tree on our property. It became the basis for the name of our farm. The “Golden” in the name was because we had so many old horses when we started here. We eventually became an all retirement horse boarding stable, so the name was appropriate.

Our first sign

I designed our first sign and laid it out. My husband used a router and outlined it. Then I painted it. It hung from 1984 to August 1995. Somehow we never took a photo of it when it was new. This is the old faded sign.

The new 2nd sign

Our neighbor directly across the street was a woodcarver. We asked him to make us a new sign. He thought we needed to show more excitement for a retirement stable so this is what he made.

More detail…

This sign hung from August 1995 to 2012.

It had started to delaminate and come apart and we had to take it down. There was no sign until we made the new one in April 2013.

The 3rd sign in April 2013

More detail….

This sign reflected what we were doing on the farm now. I again designed it and laid it out and my husband routered the outline and letters.

The animals: Devon beef cows, heritage chickens (from left: Australorp, Buff Orpington, NH Red, and Barred Rock, specifically Ernie, our pet), and cross bred heritage pigs.

March 2017

In 2017 the paint had worn away, mostly because I never found the time to apply sealer each year. I had developed peripheral neuropathy in my hands and could no longer do fine work. So a friend of mine who has steady hands helped me repaint it in April 2017.

I mixed the colors

I mixed the colors for the animals and was able to do the gilding of the letters. The routed lines kept my hand from straying. We used the cold room for painting as we could keep it warm enough for the paint to dry properly. Then we sealed it with several coats.

The finished sign April 2017

The sign and notice board

I also gave the notice board a couple coats of paint after sanding it down. So this is what you see at the end of the driveway. I change out what is offered through the season.