This weekend I watched Julie and Julia and it made feel ashamed of my blog. My pitiful lost child, floundering on the Internet with nothing more than an occasional photo to keep it going. Assuming ANYONE still reads it at all.
Believe it, or not, at the height of my posts I often had well over a 100 readers in day, occasionally spiking much higher. And now, well. I am too scared to even look at my statistics!
My Farmer Hubby claims that Facebook, in general, and Farmville, in particular is to blame for the sorry state of my blogging. I must, reluctantly admit, he is most likely correct. Farmville, if you did not know, is the most addictive game on the Internet. Well, Farmville, Farmtown, Lil’ Farm, Happy farm and I am sure there are more. But those are the four I play. YES I ADMIT IT I PLAY 4 STUPID FARM GAMES! Although my Level 26 (almost 27) Farmville Farm is the most impressive, with a barn, farmhouse, hot air balloon, and I have earned a TON of blue ribbons, although I need 24 more “neighbors” to win my Influential Neighbor blue ribbon. So if you play Farmville “Won’t you be… my Neighbor.” (Mr. Rodgers song is now stuck in my head!)
I admit it, I may have a problem! MAY…
All I need to do for my blog is spend a few minutes a day and throw some random thought into the Internet right? It should be easy. Right? Well, not really.
For one thing it is SO hard to know what to blog about. I could blog about all our farm activities. But that would be very boring, “Kids came out today and helped weed the fall lettuce and beet rows.” Followed by “Farmer Hubby weeded the fall cabbage and broccoli today.” Followed by “Helped Farmer Hubby try to salvage some of the fennel row by hand weeding & trying not to get the little ferny plants.” And maybe a “I love our wheel hoe, but welcome an affair with a cultivating tractor!” Somehow, seems pretty repetitive. So I need to come up with more than just field work.
I could go on for years about food safety, but again – BORING! You all already know what my feelings are on that, and probably agree for the most part that we have to be careful small farms are not sucked up in the frenzy of food safety regulation.
It would be nice to blog about our life, but that always seems so strange, and not quite safe or right. And really, anyway, does anyone care that my brother-in-law is going to be deployed to Afghanistan next late spring and we are hoping to be able to fly to Germany to visit them before then (yes, the army deploys troops from Germany, leaving their families in a foreign country for a year with no husband/dad). But I cannot be specific because you never want to blog when you will be away, so the same goes for farm events we plan on attending this winter. And in general, our life is not nearly as exciting as many people's, bound as it is for most months of the year by the boundary of our farm.
So what do I blog about?
I read blogs where people have set up a structure. Like Monday is Gardening Tip day. Wednesday is random photo day. Friday is article day... But that requires a level of commitment I don't have and it does not interest me at all.
In the movie Julie imposed a structure to her blog and gave herself a deadline 500+ recipes in one year. That will not work for me! The blog is not my project, the focus of my non 9-5 job life. It is just a little part of my none "job" life. After all there is the farm and everything that comes with that. So there will be no crazy self imposed deadlines in my future or my blog.
So here is my resolution. If I have not blogged in the past two days I cannot play Farmville until I do! Since if I do not harvest my Farmville crops in a certain time frame they will die, that will give me incentive to blog more often. If people comment so I know I have real readers, that will give me motivation to keep going, for so often blogging is like talking to yourself and that is just plain crazy. (As if being egocentric enough to assume people care about my blog is not crazy in and of itself.)
So please, comment often and help me keep blogging. I have started a small list of blog ideas, if you think I should talk about something let me know and MAYBE I will listen.
Wish me luck & readers... If anyone is out there!
6 comments:
We are here, now get blogging! =)
I loved your blog about Haunted Ohio last year. Any spooky stories about that wonderful old barn you have on you home page?
There are many types of readers, of course, but I suppose most of them are interested in farming. Else they would be reading other types of blogs. So while you may find blogging about the farm repetitive, I at least find it very interesting. Blogging about food safety is a public service. Not everyone knows about the machinations of congress and bureaucracy, to say nothing of the corporate farm sharks. In fact, most people don't seem to notice what they eat.
As for Farmville, I'm very fortunate. I hate games of any sort, except for card games. So good luck with it.
Heather - I've been following your CSA farm progress. I was excited the bit that I got to hear about your farm back during wedding planning, and since doing a lot of hiking down in the valley come across hearing about CSA farming more and more.
Glad to see of your progress and enjoy reading your blog!
No comments on farmville as I blocked the application ages ago on facebook and rarely hear about it as a result. lol but I used to love simcity-simfarm-simant etc so I'm sure I would enjoy the game, but not the time sink.
See ya - Nora
Hi Heather,
I love hearing about the farm details. Since I have cut back on my gardening, it's nice to hear about weeding, watering, plant problems, etc. It makes me appreciate my CSA share all the more when I pick it up. It may be boring for you, since you actually have to DO the work - but reading about work is a lot more fun than actually doing it! So keep up the farming details.
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