2023, animals, Farming Update, Nature, Weather

Bet the Farm On It!

36 Comments

WordPress, for all its various issues, is good about keeping track of statistics.  They send me emails every month which I usually just blow off.  Since the point of the Trail is not to increase traffic and make a big deal of ourselves, it doesn’t seem like we need to pay too much attention.

We are up to 13,524 subscribers.  This isn’t as exciting as it sounds… it just means that at some point in the past decade, 13K folks have hit the subscribe button.  It does not mean that 13K folks are reading the trail every day.   Far from it.  But we still have readers from all over the globe – in fact, we have had a “Like” from Mongolia in the past six months – that’s new.

The most fun news is that the Farm Reports are by far the most popular bits on the trail.  For the past six months, the most viewed, liked and commented post of each month belongs to our Ben!  I even got WordPress to cough up the most popular post of the last year.  You guessed it.  September 10, 2022 – Is It Fall Already? 

So kudos to Ben for livening up the trail every weekend and for giving us all a fabulous picture of farm life!

Your fantasy farm?  Tell me all about it!

36 thoughts on “Bet the Farm On It!”

    1. Woops, start again: My fantasy farm is an acreage where there is a fabulous apple/pear orchard and a not-too-large veggie garden. These lovely growing places prune and weed themselves at times when I don’t manage to get to the task. Oh, and lovely gardens around the house with my favorite pollinator flowers. The place would have outbuildings built by Ben (or at least people trained by Ben…).

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

  3. Rise and Shine, Baboons,

    I am with Barb, my fantasy farm is an acre. And with the acre comes the labor (meaning people) to relieve me of the work. But I get to plan everything, then order the people about and pay them well.

    Farms are a lot of work, and in my fantasies I am not working hard. I am relaxing, reading a book.

    There does have to be a plot of flax planted though, so that I can view that indigo blue every day that it blooms.

    Congratulations Ben on the popularity of what you write, and the educational service you are providing about farming.

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

  4. I have a lot of respect, admiration, and appreciation for all that farmers do, but for reasons almost identical to Jacque’s, I don’t ever fantasize about being a farmer. Ben has been great about relating all of the details of farm life in his weekly farm updates. I couldn’t do it. Not even close. Way to go, Ben!

    I visited Barb (from Blackduck) and Steve’s goat farm a few times. I picked up some of her soaps and got to meet the girls. It was fun and interesting. Their farm was a little piece of heaven at the very end of a tiny gravel road, next to a pond. It was quiet and peaceful. Barb is another incredibly hard working person who has sold the farm now, and the goats. She does keep some goat milk and continues to sell her soaps. They’re wonderful! I visited them at their apartment in Duluth last fall.

    Congratulations to Ben!

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

      1. You are correct Barb was in Blackhoof althoug there is a BlackDuck up there somewhere. The new place is in Duluth. I haven’t been there yet, but I did enjoy my visits to the farm as well.

        Liked by 1 person

        Reply

  6. Gosh… that’s pretty interesting. But can we put an “*” by that? I mean, my posts are up for two days so it’s extra time. And then put another “**” because that post of September of 2022 was Steve’s funeral and there were extra comments for that.

    Kelly asks me sometimes if I ever wanted to be one of those larger farmers. Yes and no. I would still enjoy the fieldwork and being in the tractors, and just having all those big toys. But I’d have to have help too; can’t do it all by myself so there would need to be family or hired help.
    It’s such a contrast when I start working at the college again and simply how much less work I get done at home these days.
    We saw a large herd of beef cattle in a pasture one day and admired them and I said ‘We should get some cattle again’. But then I remembered we’d need fences, and feed, and stuff to create the feed, and stuff to haul away the manure…. maybe we should just look at the neighbors cattle.

    I truly believe farming has to be in your blood. There’s just something about it…I’m sure glad it’s in mine. Again, I feel very fortunate.
    Thank you all for the kind words and supporting this blog every day.

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

  11. marijuana hops and herbs
    i am looking at starting one with hosta and lillie’s as the crop because they are close to bulletproof keep the deer off them and divide every 4 years

    dog rescue and a pond full of stone crab

    part of my vision calls for an inside growing place with temperature control lightening by computer to make tweaking the fun of it
    stone crab in the pond below feeding hydroponically

    Liked by 5 people

    Reply

Leave a comment