Favorites of 2009

Newspapers love to do the top ten stories of the past year in late December or early January, and I thought it would be fun to do something similar. Below in no particular order are the ten posts or post series from the past year that I like the best.

1. Playing with fire. I did a fair number of nature posts during the year, and this one was bigger than most of them. It was also something that I never would have done if I had not been doing this blog. It also lead to three other posts, here, here, and here.

2. Sandhill Cranes. I finally got an opportunity to re-visit Jasper-Pulaski Fish and Wildlife Area, and I did it with someone with a really nice camera. The pictures on this post are much better than what I can do with my cameras. Viewing the cranes is one of the major tourist draws to our area, and I am happy that I have a solid post to show what it is all about.

3. Beaverville church. For most of the past year I have had a religion or church-related post on Sundays. I am not sure how long I can keep that up--there are still plenty of area churches to visit, but my travels rarely take me to some of the more out-of-the-way places. Beaverville is definitely out of the way, but my travels did take me there, and it is my favorite church and related site of those I have visited. See here, here, and here.

4. Easter Egg Hunt. I was not expecting much when I went to this, but I took some video and put it to music. The most memorable and funny part of the day was when the second group started before the official start and the people in charge desperately tried to stop them. It did not work. I also did a post on the preparations for this event.

5. Town-wide yard sale and bulk pickup. (Here, here, here, here, and here) I have always enjoyed the town-wide yard sale and the bulk pickup that follows, so I devoted most of one week to how it all works. That probably means that I will have to scale way back in 2010.

6. Tuesday farmers market. (Here and here) I thought it would be fun to get a bit of video of the Community band, but the onset of torrential rain made this day very special.

7. The Jasper County Fair. (Here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here) I decided to really focus on the fair this past summer, and take a close look at all the things that were going on. Of course, I could not do that because there is much more going one than any one person can see. Still, I think I captured quite a bit of the excitement of Rensselaer's biggest event of the year.

8. Elevator Renovation. (Here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here) If you have read much of the blog, you know that I like to blog about construction. One of the areas of construction that caught my attention this year was the renovation of the elevator. I was fascinated by the guys working up on the top, maybe because I have a mild case of acrophobia. My favorite pictures were of the guy riding the crane ball up to the top.

9. The airport runway expansion. (Here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here) The Jasper County Airport had a major enhancement to its north-south runway. There was a lot of fancy equipment and a lot of activity.

10. Tie replacement (Here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here) The tie replacement was my favorite of all the construction stories I did this past year. I had never seen anything like it, a moving assembly line. I waited in anticipation for the tie guys to arrive. They appeared suddenly, and were quickly gone.

Would you have put anything else in this list of favorites?

I hope 2010 will have equally interesting things to photograph and write about. However, it is possible that by this time next year, I may have stumbled onto other things that interest me more and this blog may not be updated nearly as often.