
It has been a while since I kept a blog. For several years, I wrote daily for my nature blog, Burning Silo, which I began in 2006. Then I began a new blog, Journey To The Center when I began traveling across North America in my van with my dogs after Don’s death in 2008. Both of these blogs still exist and can be found listed on the menu above under BLOGS.
As many of you know, I “blog” almost daily on social media. However, in recent months, I’ve been considering the wisdom of doing so. Who knows what the future of social media will bring. Perhaps some day, these platforms will be discontinued — maybe the plug will be pulled if they aren’t raking in enough revenue. All our contest could be lost. Then there is the other issue of creating free content on a platform that profits from my work. Furthermore, social media platforms make use of our clicking and reading to profile us — the better to place their clients’ advertisements. It’s all a big yuck. I’m tired of that. I want off this bus.
And so, here I am, giving blogging another shot. Will I do better at keeping this new blog going? I think so. I’m feeling quite motivated to make a change and believe that a lot of users of social media are ready to make a change too for some of the reasons stated above. I hope some will get into blogging, or keep on keeping on if they are already doing so. I hope that those who enjoy reading what I write on social media will be willing to follow me here, and that they’ll post comments and get into discussions the same as they do in the comments on those “other” platforms.
For those wondering why I didn’t just move to Substack or some similar platform, I did give it some consideration. However, I wanted more control over my website and content. I’ve been paying for web hosting (on a Canadian-owned hosting site) for many years. Along with several older blogs, I have a lot of photos, video and writing stored “here”. That should all be safe and continue to exist for so long as I keep paying my annual hosting and domain name fees.
What will I post on here? Pretty much whatever I feel like posting. Most of the time, it will be about my nature observations, or maybe about art that I’m making, or stories that I feel like writing. I’ll be posting photos and videos. I’ll figure it all out as I go. That’s about it for my first post.
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TOP PHOTO: A Red-eyed Vireo, taken on July 4, 2019. Earlier today, I was experimenting with turning a photo into a painting using an app called “Brushstroke” and liked how it turned out, so decided to post it here.