Top Ten Posts of 2014

I saw that some of the other bloggers were doing a "Top 10" list of their posts for 2014... so why not? Sure, I'll give it a go.  Wow, what a list! Actually I was kinda surprised at the results.

 Every body loves posts about pigz. 

To be sure, my all time top posts are all about growing out pigz, butchering, bottle feeding baby goats, goat polio, and how to keep you dog from killing your chickens.. But the top posts published in 2014 were about.... building my greenhouse. And pigz, butchering, dogs...and TV. Well that last one was kind of weird... but over all I'd say yep, these were the top posts. 

Here is the list:

1. How to watch TV without cable. This was even before Amazon Fire TV.. .now that it is on the way - we may never watch regular TV again!

2. How to transport 16' cattle panels. This was part of my series about building my greenhouse.

3. And that is all I got to say about that. I still don't have anything else to say about it. But I'm glad I have a new friend.

4. We butchered a goat. Tommy Boy meets his just end. We didn't even feel bad. Note: after all this time there is still a fair amount of insensitivity to this post. All y'all goat smugglers probably should not read this.

5. On training hard working farm dogs. Ah yes.. my favorite topic, with my favorite picture of my Dog#1. Folks are always asking me about how I work with the dogs. I'm still working on getting a GoPro to strap to my hat so you can see it in action. But here is a good overview of how I work with my dogs.

6. Project Goals: Hoop house green house. I started off declaring the project and by the end of the month it was up and running. I took my pal Bourbon Red's hoop house how-to and created a superduper greenhouse that I used all spring. Probably my favorite project.

7. Tommy Boy meets The Dog.  I'm guessing that this shows up on the list because of the reference links from both 'We Butchered a Goat' and 'On Training Hard Working Farm Dogs'.... but his gives a good account of how farm dogs should work. First that Dog#1 immediately took the right action...and that The Dread Commander Zander ran directly to my side. Zander earned a promotion for his good work and has moved on to actively performing our command "Guard Momma."

8. Baby goats and goat polio. About the same time every year folks start searching on two topics - how to bottle feed baby goats and how to treat goat polio. Note: I am not a vet. I don't play a vet on TV. But this is what we do and so far so good.

9. All American Pressure Cooker/Canner on sale. This sale was outstanding... wow what a deal! I keep track of the prices with a link on the right side of my blog. Right now it's about $200 but that $188 price was insane. Let's hope it comes back around.

10. Build a hoop house: Step One. Gather materials & planning. This is the first in the how-to. If you are interested here are the rest of the steps, here they are: Step One. Step Two. Step Three. Step Four.

All in all this has been a great year. We had some ups and downs - but we could not have asked for a better summer. Most of our projects were successful and the ones that weren't... well, we just did the best that we could. What's going to happen next year? Lots of things. I'm so excited about what we'll be working on and the new projects coming up.

Happy New Year everyone! I'm so glad to have you all in my life. Thank you so much for your support. I never thought my little blog, started mostly for my own record keeping, would lead me to so many new friends. Onward and upward, friends. Remember that we are all in this together.