Wednesday, July 31, 2013

A Giveaway and Looking Back Again

Away back in May, we hit 1000 posts made on this blog. 

I intended to do a giveaway to celebrate, but kept forgetting. 

All of the sudden, I had done 100 more posts... and it seemed silly. 

However, I decided to go ahead and do it! 

Here is what we are giving away: 


This is a new copy of Deborah Nieman's book

Homegrown and Handmade. 

Some of you may remember that Deborah's blog was featured on our sidebar for some months. 
She actually has written a second book "Ecothrifty".  

In this book are chapters dealing with gardening, keeping an orchard, and the "regular" livestock of the homestead, all of with which Deborah and her family have experience, so she writes about what she truly knows.  

All you need to do to win it is to let me know you would like to have the book by leaving a comment in this post.  We'll choose one at random, and I'll let you know via the blog who has won.  If you could then contact me with your address, I'll get it mailed posthaste after.  

We'll keep this open for one week from today. 

Here is the old henyard about 8 summers ago: 

back then, it was the NEW henyard! 


And those two were Fred and Wilma, our original Japanese bantams. 

Look how fresh and new the fence is, and there was GRASS. 


Approximately the same view today.  See what chickens do to a chicken yard? 
This is true everywhere, and I don't think neophyte chicken owners realize it. When it is wet, it is like glass, and I am not kidding you.  Very dangerous.  

There are saplings growing in there everywhere, and if I had turned and looked back towards the little henhouse behind me, you would see that it is almost completely shaded now.  In fact, there are a few saplings that I need to cut OUT, and quite a few I need to trim back. 
We are, however, expecting some more rain this week, so I think I'll wait until next. 
This was Keith's very first building project here, and he knows much more about building fence than he did then.  We cope with these... because this flock is shrinking. 



And here was the original "little" henyard, with Rambo, our Buff Orpington rooster we adopted through Olathe Animal Control, and the two hens adopted with him. 

No little henhouse, no rabbit hutch, no brooder hutch.  Grass. 

Whew. 

Now I want to write about something that I think might be happening to a lot of us. 
About a week ago, Kim at My Field of Dreams wrote about "bouncing" on her blog.  She intended to write about her stats... but when she started investigating them, she found that a porn site was "bouncing" off her blog. 

I looked up bouncing, and I am not sure that is the right term, but what is happening is that a porn site is pointing off her blog and she is getting read, but as a means to get to this other site.  No, I am not sure how it works. 

However... after reading it... I began to think about my own stats, which had been going up at a rather steady rate.  In fact, one Sunday post had drawn nearly 200 readers... and I had mentioned it to Keith ... Wow... we are sure increasing our readership!

Ha Ha on us. 

I looked in our stats, and yes, folks, there was a porn site referring our blog.  Like I said, I don't know how it works, or what can be done about it.  I looked in the stats for "referring sites" and there it was. 
It is not a triple X horrible picture site, but it is a site I would not choose to go to, nonetheless. 
I don't know where it originates. 
I noticed we had 253 pageviews two days ago, and I know those weren't all for our blog. 

Sad. 

I have no idea what can be done, because, as you know... Blogger is not very responsive, and I don't think it's their fault, anyway, I think there are just hackers out there who know how to do "stuff". 

So... I don't trust my stats anymore, because of it.  I thought it was interesting that my overseas traffic had picked up... now I see why! 

So, if you want to check your own blogs... go to your Stats page, 
and then to "Traffic Sources"... and you can see from whence your traffic is coming. 
I have just checked mine... I no longer have the mild porn page, but DO have a Fat Loss Page connected now. 
Guess where most of my page views are coming?  GERMANY. 
Go figure. 

10,000 + page views 

I worked for a German company for 6 1/2 years before retiring, but I know I don't have that many friends interested in a tiny midwest blog. 

Anyway, something to be aware of. 

Now I'm off to get some straw and hay for the haybarn, for cleaning day (henhouses) tomorrow. 




28 comments:

  1. Oh, I would LOVE to win Deborah's book! I've followed her blog for YEARS.

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  2. Looks like a wonderful information filled book. Please put me in the drawing.

    I hope having a private blog helps the above problem.


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  3. We would love to win your book BUT since we live in town there is probably other bloggers on your page that could put it to use better than us....plus most of that stuff is rather challenging for my parents...lol.....what a wonderful looking book tho!!
    Aren't pictures something...its amazing how much time passes and how things change and we don't even know it. Mom was lookin at baby gussie's first pictures and now at his new pictures....wowzer...from 2.5 lbs. to 10 lbs.
    have a great wednesday
    stella rose
    ps. 1000 posts i didn't know that!! Congrat's

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  4. If you find out how to block that, let me know. I had noticed that but did not know what to do.

    I would love to win that book.

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  5. Hi Mary Ann, Would love to enter your giveaway. Looks like a great book.

    I was just asking my daughter about stats etc. I have noticed some porn sites or just really off looking ones on my stats as well. She said they just troll the internet. I was getting a lot of spam comments until I did away with anom. post.
    She said that they do it to get you to click on their sites. They are looking for hits. I never click on those sites because of viruses and spyware issues as well.

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  6. Oh yes the annoying bouncing pages come to our blog too, we just ignore them, sometimes we have none, other time we have loads, mainly Ukraine and China.....

    Love the look of the book but in the spirit of saving on postage and air miles (if I were lucky enough to win) I will go purchase my own copy - thanks for the recommendation :-)

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  7. I've never heard of this before!! I'll have to go to stats and check it out. So how do you know if it's a porn site?? I use to get a lot of spam - but I deleted the anonymos selection and I haven't had any more spam. :-}} So you're saying that you can't do anything about the porn stuff? Grrrrrrrr

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  8. I've noticed odd referring sites on mine stats page too...wondered where in the world they came from?! Thanks for the chance to win this book...it looks really interesting!

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  9. Mary Ann,

    I removed the ability to accept anonymous posts, most of those, not all were coming from out of the country,they were also obscene. I don't know if this will help or not. This option to change/remove anonymous posts can be found under settings, posts and comments. Then on the middle of this screen you can select who has the option to view and comment on your blog.

    Please add my name to your give-away, I love books and learning new thing about homesteading, thank you.

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  10. I would love a chance to win the book!

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  11. I would la la LOVE to win and read this book! Thank you! :)

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  12. Thanks for the giveaway -- would love to win and read this book!

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  13. Mary Ann,

    I would love to win a copy of this book. I am building a library of as many resource books as possible - I recently found a Better Homes and Garden cookbook that was printed in 1930. Deborah's book looks fascinating and would be a great addition to the collection. Please enter me in your contest.

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  14. Hmmm.. I had NO IDEA about the stats issue... thanks for filling us in on this, now I have to go check it out. UGH!...

    What a lovely giveaway item!.... now I have to go look for her blog. Thanks for sharing.

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  15. I would love to win her book. It has been on my Amazon wishlist for sometime now.

    I too have noticed the stats on my blog like yours. Although I don't have porn site using me, I have a vampire site and a refer site. I know I do get most of my readers from the states and Australia, but thought it was interesting that I was getting people from Europe and Asia looking at me.

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  16. I love the look of that book, that's one I haven't heard of. I have been reading Sally Fallon's Nourishing Traditions just lately and I love the way it all goes back to simple old style homemaking.
    Interesting about the stats, I have often wonder why weird sites are reading my blog and now I know.But who knows....perhaps we are changing the world a bit and those people who accidently end up our blogs instead of an unthinkable site ,decide they would rather have a vegetable patch and grow organic food instead after reading what we write. One can only hope.

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  17. Count me in:). Unfortunately, I have also been counted in with the porn sites as well. I'll be keeping an eye out to see if someone has a way to get rid of it.

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  18. Put my name in the hat! I'd love to read the book.

    I've had that happen to my blog. I noticed in stats one day where there were over 200 visitors and funny thing was they were all at the same hour! So, I knew something different was going on. I didn't look to see where they came from, probably don't want to know! I've had a lot of people from Russia looking at my blog for some reason, too.

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  19. Thanks for the follow @ North of Wiarton, Mary Ann. What a lovely book you are offering as a Give Away to some lucky person.

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  20. Please count me in! thats' a gorgeous giveaway.

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  21. That's wonderful that you have done 1000 posts, it's rotten about the "bouncing" though. I like "Kim's" optimistic view, maybe they will be enlightened and spend some energy growing a garden or building a henhouse instead of trolling porn sites. :-)

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  22. Well, that's interesting!
    It is pretty bad when you
    can't do something for fun
    anymore.

    This could make me mad!

    Thanks for posting about this.

    :)

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  23. First off, love the new look and feel, banner is great and so are the pictures! :) Congrats on the post and you have a great blog and it shows. About the bouncing never heard of it but I have seen those weird sites show up in my stats and realized a lot of nonsense goes on! It's hard to root through sometimes. It's so funny to think people are going through farm blogs to get to porn sites I mean OK...

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  24. Don't click on any of those sites. They make money every time someone goes to see who/what they are. And that is exactly why they flood the blogs the way they do. I can't wait till we have a way to BLOCK them.

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  25. Love your new banner to Mary Ann!! Please enter me for a chance to win the beautiful book! Thanks for the heads up about the stats-must ck it out- although haven't had much traffic because only just getting back into posting after a few months away! Have enjoyed your blog since before you "retired" from "work" to full time fun!!
    Rain :)

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  26. Would love to win this book! Sorry about your blogging woes.

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  27. Hi Mary Ann,

    All so interesting! Would love to win this book and JUST in case I should be so lucky, don't worry about sending it to Greece - my daughter lives in Toronto!:))

    xo
    Poppy

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  28. This book sounds very interesting. Please enter me in the drawing.

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