When we moved to the farm five years ago, I’d been thinking about starting a blog for a little while. I liked the idea of chronicling our life at the farm and the process of renovating the house. I wasn’t sure how long I’d keep it going and whether I’d like being a blogger, but five years later, I’m still here.

This little blog is five years old. It feels pretty cool.

I love being able to look back through the archives and have a reminder of what’s happened over the past five years. This blog is always going to be personal for me.

But there’s obviously a public side as well. I love the connections that I’ve made with so many people and the opportunities that have come from the blog. Every year on my blog-iversary, I share some of the stats from the blog, which show some of these connections.

Over the last five years, the blog has had more than 273,600 views and 310 of you have signed up as official followers. I’ve published 782 posts–151 of them in the last year–and uploaded 2,991 pictures, graphics and videos.

Last year, 49,484 visitors dropped by the blog for 82,253 views. The average number of views per day were 222.

My blog is very small (and personal) and I don’t work very hard to promote it, but I’m proud of how it’s grown over the past five years.

I’m always surprised by how visitors come to this blog from all over the world–155 different countries last year.

1. United States — 53,539
2. Canada — 15,204
3. United Kingdom — 4,063
4. Australia — 1,655
5. Singapore — 1,071
6. Germany — 831
7. India — 464
8. Ireland — 402
9. South Africa — 380
10. Switzerland — 362

Five years into blogging, my most popular posts come from the archives. People are always looking for information about DIYing wood countertops and Ikea’s Strandmon armchair. Here are the most popular posts from the last year.

1. Hardboard and six favourite projects
2. Looking for sawzall suggestions
3. Forsythia failure
4. Vegetable garden dueling DIY challenge
5. Harvest basket
6. June garden update
7. Painting with a smaller brush
8. Our new summer project
9. Garden Dueling DIY Week 1
10. Close encounters of the turkey kind

I have to give credit to Sarah in Illinois for all of her posts over the past year. I’ve enjoyed reading about life on her farm.

I also enjoy connecting with all of you. Whether you leave a comment or read along quietly, I appreciate you following along on our country adventures. Thank you.

Five years ago, when I went to WordPress, claimed the Homeon129Acres name and pushed publish on my first post, I said, “This is the start of something.” Part of that something was going to be the farm, but for the blog I wasn’t exactly sure what that something might be. It’s been a cool journey and I’m looking forward to seeing what comes next.