I'm just a bloggin' fool

Paul Lester asked an interesting question on his blog earlier this week. In his post, Paul Lester Photo » Blog Archive » Why I blog, he challenges his readers to explain why they blog and if they've ever been tempted to quit.

The second question is easy to answer. I did quit, for nearly two years, when other aspects of my life demanded my full attention. No one was more surprised than I when I started up again.

The first question - why do you blog? - is harder to answer. I don't know the reasons. I first started to learn the technology; but it's not that complicated, and that was quickly accomplished. Yet I blog on, despite the progress in interfaces that makes it ever easier to do so.

For more than 20 years I've been part of online communities. I've met good friends (not to mention my husband), and I've learned a lot about a lot of different things. In many ways, online communities are much like the colleges and universities at which I work. Both are full of talented, knowledgeable, and diverse people who are incredibly interesting and who value many of the same things that I do in life.

As my network of online friends has expanded, as more and more friends and family have moved online, and as email has overrun itself with spam (it's so crowded no one goes there anymore), blogging has simply become an easier way to keep in touch.

And I've learned so much! I learn from all the blogs I read - about photography, invertebrates, plants, birds, other animals, and the weather. I gain glimpses into lives very different from mine, lives of people with whom I have many common interests but would never have met in the offline course of events.



Or maybe it's simpler still. Where else would I find a community of people who would care to see a photo of a bird's nest I found in the yard this morning?

New look

If you're reading this directly on the blog rather than in a reader (e.g., Google Reader, Bloglines), you'll notice the appearance has changed somewhat. I've just tweaked the template to use more of the screen and be a little easier to read.

I dare say I'll play around with it a little more before I'm done.

I've also made some changes to the Wrenaissance website, to reflect the shift in emphasis to the blog and the use of newer tools such as flickr and del.icio.us.

Top Five Ways Blog Carnivals Make Blogging Better

With perfect timing, Mike at 10,000 Birds posted Top Five Ways Blog Carnivals Make Blogging Better.

The most important to me are the last two: contact and community. I blogged last month about virtual communities and the people you meet online. Even though I've only been back in blogging a few months, I'm already beginning to find I'm on the edges of a network - reading and being read by - bloggers who care about the environment, conservation, wildlife, native plants, and local communities. I've discovered some links through blogrolls, but others through carnivals (I and the Bird, Festival of the Trees, Good Planets) that show let us show our best face, and the words or pictures we're most excited about, to the rest of the community.

Carnivals help us turn our monologues into conversations. Without someone reading and responding, I would not have the feedback that helps me improve those words and pictures. I wouldn't learn nearly so much about the world, nor see and read and learn from others.

Do I care about lots of links and page rankings? No, not particularly. But I don't want to talk to myself, either. I can do that without a computer.

Should Auld Acquaintance ...

One of the nice things about returning to blogging after a year and a half absence was finding that several of the blogs I read regularly are still alive and thriving. I'm still catching up on what I've missed, but it's nice to see Niches and The Taming of the BandAid still thriving.

Sometimes it seems like there are many, many fellow travelers on the native-plant, backyard-habitat bandwagon, but that's only because likes attract. In "real life" most of the people I meet or talk gardening with are lawn-crazy, irrigation-system loving, tropical-plant cultivating folks who just don't get native plants and think wildlife habitats should be banned from suburban neighborhoods. The other night I was chatting with a new acquaintance at a party, and almost fell off my chair when I asked about her gardening and she replied that she was mostly interested in native plants and reducing the amount of lawn around her house. Eureka!

What happens while you're making other plans?

Life, that's what.

In the last two years I've dealt with illness and death among my family and friends, a new job, a move to Michigan, a new house, and as part of all this, a new habitat. Blogging hasn't been my highest priority. But now I'm back.

I've just updated the Wrenaissance website and I'm hoping to improve and expand it as well as start the blog up again.I've removed all the dead links and comment spam I could find, and I've also disabled comments on older posts (hey, you've had two years to comment!). Future comments will have a challenge word, and if I still get spam, I'll change to moderated comments.

The web will take additional work, which I'm hoping to complete over the winter months so I can turn to gardening and photography come spring.