Blogging about blogging

I really should be sleeping.  I have that whole tired but can't sleep twitchy thing going on right now, so this will probably be disjointed, varied, random, and redundant.  :P

I enjoy blogging.  If I didn't, I wouldn't do it.  I have enough chores that are smelly and gross and unpleasant, like mucking out pens and slogging through the soggy wasteland that is my yard to feed critters while being stalked by violent and annoying geese.

Some days I have nothing homesteading related to blog about.  Sure, I could post about the same old thing every day:  tending fires, letting critters out, feeding critters, mopping up the mud that has been tracked in (at least three dozen times a day), filling the firewood rings and sweeping that mess up, locking up critters, etc.  You get the idea. That would be pretty boring to read about, since it's pretty boring to actually do...every... stinking... day.

Homesteaders, just like everyone else, have other things going on besides taking care of critters and planning next year's garden.  Most of us have "real" jobs - those horrible things that require clocking-in and a daily commute.  That's just a fact of life.  We didn't inherit our place or come across a fortune buried in the yard in a mason jar (...yet...those aren't gopher holes....), so there's a mortgage to pay.

We have our adventures that aren't homesteading related, like car wrecks, specialist visits during major floods, odd experiences in the store...just life, ya know?  Despite the homesteader's dream, the real world tends to leak in from time to time...when you least expect it....or daily...

We do have some exciting and unusual adventures at home, the sort of thing that most people will never have happen, like trying to resuscitate a duckling, fussing at the geese for throwing grass in the laundry bucket, watching a fox chase chickens across the patio, or figuring out that creepy sound in the woods at night is a fox's mating call.  But daily, no, not all that exciting on a daily basis.

I stepped on a lot of toes back in the spring when I did the Gimme post about homesteaders looking for donations.  Lucky for those toes, I was wearing my spring trainers at the time, and not the heavy hiking boots I wear this time of year.  I meant to follow up on that, but never really got around to it, since spring is so busy, and frankly, the whole thing slipped my mind.  My opinion is still that if you are blogging about self-sufficiency, you shouldn't be looking for a hand-out, but most people can't see the irony.  And that's what it is, really, pure irony.  If you had, say, a recipe blog, and asked for donations, there's no irony there.  When I did that post, just for the record, I didn't even realize blogger had a donate button.  The sites I had in mind were those actively soliciting donations to obtain or expand their homesteads.  Therefore, I had given no thought to the donate button sitting quietly in the corner of a page, but..yeah...still some irony there, dontcha think?  It is, however, a free country, as the saying goes, and those that want to ask for donations are free to do so.  I will still laugh at the irony.

I suppose, if you feel the need to make a donation, there are worse places to put your money; then again, how do you know said homesteader isn't spending that donation on a flat screen tv, drugs, 900 phone sex hotlines, or trademarking common homesteading phrases?   One person that replied to my forum post on the subject suggested that he (anonymous poster, but for the sake of this post, I will use the pronoun he) would possibly make donations to said blogs, now that I had brought it up.  Giving away your own money? Wow, way to teach me a lesson. *snorts*

Other replies suggested that, as homesteading bloggers, they should not be expected to just give away homesteading tips and how-to advice, and blogging takes away time from other chores.  Blogging is free, and anyone that feels it is such a chore should maybe pick another hobby.  Personally, there are a lot of other things I could be doing right now, but blogging is a guilty pleasure, so here I am.  Besides, if I don't let out the word-bees buzzing around in my head, my skull may split. :)

My favorite responses were the ones suggesting, sometimes subtly, sometimes not, that my blog is not really a how-to blog, is full of prattle, and that I must be looking for shock value as I describe myself as "always facetious". Oy.  Yes..shock value.  The fact that I have geese actually trying to peck at me through the window, my porch is covered in chicken poop and mud, I own one good pair of jeans and the rest are work clothes, I carry several sharp objects on my person, and I am as likely to greet you with a chainsaw as a "Howdy!"...yes, all very shocking.  If you consider the fact that yes, that's really me, exactly how I am, nothing added for drama's sake, well, then it's not exactly like I'm looking for shock value..I'm just being myself.  And facetious, well, that's got nothing to do with it; it's just a polite way of saying that I don't take life too seriously, and am, indeed, a smart-arse.

I never said this was a how-to blog, did I?  As for being full of prattle, I know worse things to be full of.  lol   As I was saying, I could blog about homesteading stuff all the time, but I'd die of boredom, and my readers would probably be electrocuted because their eyes would glaze over and they'd drool like zombies right onto their keyboards.  Homesteading isn't always as exciting as it sounds.