by Tammy Taylor
I’ve only been blogging regularly since the first of the year but I’ve enjoyed making new friends here – y’all have been awesome! Now that we’re approaching the end of the year I thought it would be fun to list the top ten most popular posts of our little ole Blog. These are the posts that are the highest searched and the highest read by you, my much-valued followers. So without further adieu, I offer you:
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A dear friend brought homemade cornbread to our home and it was so moist & delicious I begged for her recipe. I’m of the opinion that there’s no better cornbread than homemade, with spicy jalapenos, baked in cast iron. How about you? Homemade Jalapeno Cornbread Baked In A Cast-Iron Skillet
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This summer we had a heifer calf that started showing signs of bloat distress. But we were baffled – HOW? We were in the middle of yet another drought, no lush green grass that would be suspect for bloat, and no changes in her diet. We made an emergency call to our vet on a Sunday evening and we were so surprised at what he found. Calf Care – Trouble In Paradise
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I’m always thinking about ways to keep our grocery budget low. RancherMan & I are pretty serious about not wasting food or food dollars and apparently many of you feel the same way as evident by the popularity of my post – Take A BITE Out Of The Grocery Budget
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I only keep well-used and well-loved cookware in my kitchen so I don’t have to dig through mountains of specialty appliances to find what I need when I’m cooking. One thing that certainly has made the cut is my grandmother’s Corning Ware covered casserole dishes and I use them all the time. See how I put them to great use by reading Using Vintage Kitchenware: Corning Ware
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For a few years now there’s been a real push in America to slow things down and enjoy life more. It’s a phrase that’s been coined ‘Voluntary Simplicity’. It takes deliberate steps to begin the process but it’s so satisfying to cut the life-clutter from your days so you can really focus on those things that are actually important to you. I write about my enjoyment of this lifestyle in the post Living Deliberately – Voluntary Simplicity
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I’ve often been asked if it’s difficult to watch a newborn calf take it’s first breath of life, delight as it learns to walk, then jump, then run, watch it grow into a beautiful heifer and sell her to another ranch – don’t I end up getting attached? I’m pleased address the emotions involved in my post Can You Sell Animals You’ve Raised?
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About a decade ago although I ate yogurt every morning I hated the plastic non-recyclable (for us) tubs it was sold in. I went on a mission to see if I could make yogurt myself and was pleasantly surprised to find that it was very easy, healthier and so inexpensive. I now make my own homemade yogurt about once a week and you can see my recipe in the post Homemade Yogurt Recipe – Quick & Easy!
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RancherMan contributed a post about saving electricity in ways maybe not previously considered – and from a guy’s perspective. With tough financial times hitting so many so hard, there’s been lots of interest in what he has to say in his post Saving Electricity – Things That Make You Go DUH!
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When we lived in Dallas we noticed everyone was having solar screens installed to lower the inside temps during those hot Texas summers. But although we loved the look, installation seemed pretty expensive to us. So RancherMan & I researched & found that you could very easily build your own solar screens for a fraction of the price. Of course when we moved to the ranch we built solar screens for our home here as well – it’s an amazing difference they make in the temps hitting the window. Many others are apparently interested in Saving Money & Energy With Solar Screens
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I learned to make jelly from the blooms of a honeysuckle vine – everyone in my family absolutely loved it and has been begging me to make it again as soon as the honeysuckle blooms again. It’s also the most frequently-visited post on my blog, check it out! Recipe: Honeysuckle Jelly – Childhood Memories In A Jar
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So there ya go – the top 10 most popular posts on our little ole blog this year. It’s been a fun experience and I can’t wait to see what’s in store next year – stay tuned!
Thank you my friends for your interactions throughout the year, it means more than you know. (hugs)
~TxH~
Wanna Read Other Year’s Top 10 Homesteading Posts?
2014 Top 10 Homesteading Posts
2015 Top 10 Homesteading Posts
2016 Top 10 Homesteading Posts
2017 Top 10 Homesteading Posts
2018 Top 10 Homesteading Posts
C’mon by & sit a spell! Come hang out at our Facebook Page. It’s like sitting in a front porch rocker with a glass of cold iced tea. There are lots of good folks sharing!
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I commented on one of the old ones, then realized it made much more sense to comment here – duh.
Could you possibly post a photo from inside the room that is shielded by the solar screens so I could get an idea how much the light itself is diffused. We live in a/c country, but I still need plenty of light.
It would be so hard to post a picture of the inside of a room for several reasons: 1) The room will obviously be darker than outside so photography equipment would attempt to compensate for that giving an untrue photo, similar to trying to take someone’s picture when they’re standing in front of a window – your subject will only show as a silhouette, 2) We don’t have solar screens on all windows. We only use the solar screens on the east side of the house – the north & south windows are covered by porches and we have no windows (by design) on the west side of the house. So even though the solar screens do slightly darken the light coming in the windows, it’s only in two rooms and not all of the windows in either room have solar screens – just the windows on the east side.
Plus they’re not even installed right now since we pull our screens off in the fall since we actually WANT the solar heat to come through the windows during the colder months. When it starts heating up again late spring we’ll take ’em out of the attic & put them back on the windows.
I will say the solar screens make a huge difference in the heat that is not allowed through the windows in the summertime and I liken the darkening inside as slight – similar to standing under a shade tree. And again since we only have a handful of windows solar screened it doesn’t make a huge difference in the lighting in any room. ~TxH~
I always enjoy reading your blog. I’m sharing this post on my FB page today. I also Tweeted the Things that make you go duh post this morning. So glad you shared with us at Merry Monday so I can drop by. Happy 2016!
How awesome Shirley – thanks for sharing!! ~TxH~
This is a great collection of posts! I’ve always wanted to try making my own yogurt – I’ll need to check out your post! Thank you for linking up with our Merry Monday party 🙂
You’ll be surprised at how easy it really is Emily. Give it a try, you won’t be sorry. ~TxH~
These are all so great! I can’t wait to try making the yogurt and honeysuckle jelly. They are so pretty 🙂 Thanks for sharing and linking up to What’d You Do This Weekend. I’ll be featuring this tonight in this week’s linkup. Have a great night!
Such a great list! I love honeysuckle so I’m sure that jam is fabulous. I have a few of those same Corning Ware dishes too!
I love those Corning Ware dishes Deanna, and I think the Cornflower pattern was their most popular. ~TxH~
These sound like awesome posts! Pinning so I can take my time reading and be able to refer back. Thanks for linking to Meandering Mondays!
Awesome – thanks for the pin! ~TxH~
I am glad to have come across your blog from Robin’s Fluster Buster. We just moved to our own small “homestead” and learning a lot about gardening and farming. It will be great to go through your blog and see the wonderful things you are doing!
Angela
Welcome aboard Angela! You’re gonna love your new life – there’s nothing like it!! ~TxH~
love your post as it brought back memories and allowed me to remember why I do what I do. Sometimes this world gets to fast and many push to fast leaving us that like it a bit slower in the way and trying to find our way
Always fun to look back and see what hit the mark! Thanks for sharing at TTF!
Happy New Year to you and your family. I’ve so enjoyed reading your helpful posts since I was lucky enough to find your blog. I particularly enjoy your food and gardening related posts as some things are so different from gardening in Wisconsin and some are amazing similar.
You have great abilities as a writer, making all posts readable and friendly with a very helpful message. May you enjoy your talents enough to continue for a long time. Thanks for allowing us to read about the homestead “life” so many of us love.
Wow Nancy, what an incredibly sweet comment – thank you! I love to garden & I’m about to begin my ‘indoor garden’ as I can’t stand to wait until spring. At least the indoor garden starter allows me to get my hands in the soil and start my seeds. Be watching for me to post about it very soon. Here’s hoping you & yours have an amazing new year! ~TxH~
This is a great list! I was a little bummed none of my gardening or canning posts showed up on my Top 13 List this year. You’ve got a few posts here that I need to pin and revisit in the summer! 🙂
Thanks Michelle, I never know which posts will really resonate with folks but it looks like there’s a pretty wide variety in the top 10. ~TxH~