The Best of Homestead Dreamer - Year 1

Wait, what? It has been a year already? I swear, I only just registered the domain name. What a crazy, fantastic, frustrating, challenging, and rewarding year it has been! We went back and put all of the best we published in 2014 into one easy list and even made a new Pinterest board but more on that later.

If you are newer to the blog, here is a little back story:

June 27, 2013 – I created a Facebook page called Homestead Dreamer as a way to keep track of what I had done in the garden from year to year. It was my first season growing any type of food. My husband and I had agreed that we wanted to rely more on ourselves for what we needed which included gardening so there I was. Then a crazy thing happened: people started to LIKE my page. At first, I didn’t pay too much attention to it. I had made it so I could remember, not as a “community” page.
January/February 2014 – The likes really began to grow and my ‘notes’ on the page started to take on a more ‘post and share’ feel to it. I had thought about blogging many times in my life but hadn’t done anything. I decided to register the domain and had even gotten a ‘WordPress site’ but wasn’t going to jump on board until I had learned more about it. Well, in February, we hit 2,000 likes on Facebook and I found myself unable to say everything I wanted to in a quick FB blurb. Thus began the blog.
June 20, 2014 – The Facebook page passed 6,000 likes and we did a facelift and clean up of the site. A lot of ‘back office’ infrastructure was done and a new logo was created to give us a fresh look. Colors were changed slightly and efforts to engage even more people via social media began!

Here we are, a mere 14 months later and WOW! What a ride it has been! As of this posting, we are just under 10,000 likes on Facebook and had more page views last month than almost all of last year! We have learned so many new skills and have had some crazy adventures along the way. The only thing that shines brighter than the blog is the publishing of “Aftermath, A Story of Survival.” Because of TinHatRanch.com and the fans, I was able to mark something off my bucket list:

Write a book.

The best part about that is I am far from over on the novel writing. I don’t ever expect I will get rich from it and that is OK with me because I love to write. I love the interaction with the readers each week as we shape the story together. I expect the sequel will be published and available August 2015 with the 3rd book in the TRILOGY being out sometime in mid 2016!

I never expected this journey when I started the FB page. I never expected all that would grow from the first few seeds planted in our first cold frame. Text does a poor job of expressing my sincere gratitude to every.single.fan who has shared their stories, asked their questions, and encouraged me to keep going and keep “doing the stuff!” Over the last year, there have been some articles that really took off and went ‘viral’ by my standards. I even made a new Pinterest Board (see below) that showcases all of the BEST articles we have posted.