Blogosphere

First, just had to share this photo of a little tree frog on a cucumber outside my front door last night. I guess he just wanted to be this green! Usually I have one on the metal part of my grill. I think he likes the warmth and enjoys being gray.

I’ve been surprised lately as people have been “endorsing” me for blogging on my LinkedIn page. Surprised, because blogging is not something I consider part of my work life. From the beginning, I’ve never set out to be a real blogger.

Being a real blogger involves committing to one topic. You can be a food blogger, or a garden blogger, or a movie review blogger, but not all three. And where does poetry fit in? If you’re going to be a food blogger, you need to take beautiful photos of your food, not just take a few shots before someone digs in or of the pot on the stove… You need to be attentive to recipes.

To be a real blogger, you need to post all the time. Every day is best. And you also need to read other blogs a lot, and “like” the posts and “follow” them (though I think most bloggers send the notifications to a bogus account and don’t return to the blogs they’re following). That’s how you get people to follow you.

If you do this, you might get a lot of followers. If you’re lucky, they will also comment on your blog. If a few people comment, more bloggers will follow suit. And when you have some statistics, then maybe you can get an advertiser or two. But mostly what I think you can get is free stuff. Which you then review on your blog.

I used to regularly read the posts from a food blogger who would daily chronicle and describe the very mundane meals he made. And then I would get jealous when companies sent him all sorts of kitchen gadgets for free. This guy’s endorsement would not convince me to buy anything!

The big prize for food bloggers is to write your own cookbook. Then we get to read endless comments on the progress of the cookbook and anxiously await its publication.

I was in Stanford’s creative writing program with poet Christian Wiman and he once said something that has stuck with me. He said “Poetry is a chronicle of the emotional life.” For me, this blog is a chronicle of “life on these 80 acres.” It is a chronicle of my mind and my body in this place. Very quickly it became a way to chart the seasons– reviews in the winter, gardening in the summer, cooking and poetry all the time.

I am gratified by this portrait of life. And I am grateful for the responses by readers. I am always happy to know about readers, some of whom come and go, and the “activity” on the blog still comes primarily from friends and family, mostly on my Facebook page rather than the comments section.

I almost never look at my “stats,” but every once in a while I’ll notice a spike. A recent spike was due to, of all things, Pinterest. The photo of my jars of blueberry-rhubarb jam from 2010 was being pinned here and there. It is a nice photo, and a great recipe!

Because I’m a bad blogger, I accidentally deleted the photo of the canned goods in their lovely, raffia-lined box. But look at how pretty this mulberry sauce is and these garlic pickles! And yes, that is chocolate soap…

And sometimes, I get gifts, not from companies but from real people! A woman whose company rents our retreat center for meetings brought me a bag of homemade soaps. They are in my bathroom and I love them. And I don’t know her except through the blog– when I use the soap, I feel the love for the blog and feel how I’m part of a community that values homemade things and traditional crafts.

Recently, we got a lovely box of canned goods from one of Steve’s former students who reads the blog. Wow.

Again, that connection to people who are also embracing canning, growing food, and restoring our small patches of earth for the bees and butterflies, is moving to me.

“Visits” and comments from friends new and old, far and near, are more gratifying to me than any newfangled kitchen gift. So today I say thank you, everyone. Thank you for reading this chronicle.

And today, a photo of a frog on a cucumber!