
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 content 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.
I’m glad I’ve kept my blog up all these years. Like you, I’m wondering about the content I’ve posted on social media. I’ve found some “scraped” content elsewhere, besides the concern of, in my infinitesimal amount, adding to the profit and supporting the ideology of the owners.
I like your “Brushstroked” photo!
Yes! You’re one of the most stalwart blog peeps I can think of! I should have kept up with mine, but life just got too much in the way. It still does, but as mentioned, I’d like to keep my own writing here now. I may even try to set up another blog and download my content off FB — I think there is some way to download one’s FB feed and upload it into a blog. I’ll check into that later once I get this all working properly. I wanted to revamp my home page too — working on that as well — to connect a bunch of stuff that is scattered around the internet.
I like the look of the Brushstroked photo too!. Someone asked me if I could turn one of my photos of a nesting bird into something that looked like a painting. I didn’t have software to do it, so I looked around for an app and found this one. Now that I’ve tried it out, I’m thinking it would be fun to use to make something — maybe a book out of photos that I’ve reworked In the app (like I need another project right now!). 🙂
“should have” No. There’s no such thing. We’re all doing the best we can with what life throws at us. No sense burdening ourselves with the idea that we “should” have done more.
Most of my content on FB is a repost or links to my blog, so nothing is lost if it goes down. But long ago, I downloaded a copy of a conversation on chat that seemed important at the time. I’m thinking I should look into downloading all of my conversations, just in case.
I do think we should begin saving things we feel are important to keep. We can’t be sure of anything online anymore. The other day, I went to listen to some interviews about forestry on the CBC website — they were from Information Morning here in NS. They used to keep most of this stuff online for a few years. I was disappointed to find that most of the interviews were gone except those in the past year or so.
I am really glad to see you’re blogging/journaling again.
Thanks, Sharon. I’m glad to get this going again! 🙂
I always look forward to your musing, whatever the platform. And I love the brushstroke effect you applied to your photo!
Hi Carol — I really like the Brushstroke effect too. I’m definitely going to be playing around with it on some of my other photos!
Glad you here!
Very glad to be! 🙂
I actually made it over , always fear I will end up God knows where, one would think I am paranoid. I think I am. I fear being lost in some program and cannot escape. 😆 Then my next worry is finding my way back in again 😆
So love reading your blogs, journals, rants and daily ups and downs. 💕
Hi Laurinda! I’m glad you found your way here — didn’t get lost — and find your way back again. 🙂
I’ll be posting a link to each new blog post for the foreseeable future, so never fear.
I’m glad that you enjoy what I write — rants and all! haha 😀
Good to hear from you again, Bev. I keep paying to have my Talking 37th Dream blog in existence, although I haven’t posted there for some time. I continue to comment on a few Blogger blogs that I’ve been reading for years and have settled on posting artwork on my Substack every Sunday. I’ve found that Substack is not as good for posting artwork as Blogger was, but it’s adequate. Your lovely Red-eyed vireo would look as good on Substack as it does here. Looking forward to seeing what you post in the coming days. Substack is my only venture into social media. It feels unlike other social media to me. I can always go back to my Blogger blog, if need be.
Looking forward to seeing photos of nature, your art work, your collies and your house. Always loved your photos of insects. Always interested in what you have to say.
Thanks, Am. I’m so glad you found your way here. I am going to try to get back into blog writing AND blog reading. I do see your work on sub stack and should be commenting. I know it’s because of how I see posts — a sort of digest form with a few people’s blogs I follow, come in on my email. It hasn’t got the same feel as the “old days” when I used to surf around from one blog to the next each day to see what everyone had written. I actually write that way on FB – real posts, but now I want to keep everything here. I”ve just been checking into how to download my content out of FB and install it in WP. Seems like it might be complicated, but it would be nice to have. We’ll see!! Anyhow, glad you’re here — and I did catch what you meant about the Vireo image. I do like being able to make the art or photos be quite large. Take care.
Should have proofread better! Your Red-eyed vireo would NOT have looked as good as it does here.