Autumn colours
I began this blog just over 15 years ago.
In that span of time, much has changed.
In 2008 there were lots of blogs. In fact there was a 'web ring' so that if you found one of the blogs that belonged to the 'ring' you could follow the ring to discover other blogs. Over the years bloggers fell by the wayside, choosing to do other things (You Tube, Tik Tok?) or just finding life too busy to do their craft and/or post about it.
I joined Twitter (not sure why, someone said it was a good move to make) and Facebook. I gradually left nearly all of the weaving groups I belonged to for various reasons.
Mostly I left because I didn't want to argue with people. I don't need to be 'right', I need to be happy. And arguing makes me unhappy. So, more and more I found myself responding to things I was seeing online by writing a 'response' here, in my own space, and not, you know, addressing anyone in particular, just those who were interested in what I have to say.
At one point I remember someone making a comment vociferously disagreeing with what I had to say and someone else responding before I saw the comment that this *was* 'my' space and if they disagreed they didn't need to come here to read what I had to say.
But now it's 2023 and Twitter is the realm of fascists and like, and I'm long gone. Facebook is getting ever more annoying, but I have a large number of 'friends' on Facebook, some of them I only interact with there. And sometimes I find out that they are having a hard time so I can reach out via Messenger and send them best wishes. This year alone I've discovered via Facebook/Messenger that two people I know have died. I am sad they are gone, grateful to have known them. Others I have only known via Facebook, but these two I actually knew, liked, and will miss.
As we slide slowly into autumn, I remain hopeful that with the lowering of temperatures the wildfires will die out and we can live without the smoke pall. For a few months, anyway. The past few days have been pretty awful, frankly, but we are still in no danger from fire itself. Others are, still.
Climate change is NOT a myth, it is here and it will stay here if we fail to address changes in our lives. Constant smoke pall in the summer, floods, landslides, hurricanes/tornados, sinkholes, drought, bears needing to come into town in *droves* because the berries ripened the beginning of August and there is no food in the bush.
There is little that I can do, but I will continue to do what I can.
And I will continue to weave as much as I can (hopefully more with the new treatments coming up), and muse about things here. Because blogging might be dead, but I'm not. Yet.
4 comments:
It’s a shame that there are fewer bloggers now, but it’s not absolutely dead!
About 20 years ago a fellow fiber blogger told me blogging was dead and that "everybody" was switching to facebook. I neither found fb to be intuitive, nor a good venue for what I wanted to do, i.e. record keeping and journaling. It's useful for the latest photos of my grandkids, though. And, unfortunately, my goat breeders association insists on using it.
When we bought our place, I took my fiber journal offline and spent 14 years writing a homestead blog and books. Now, that I have the ability to weave again, I republished my fiber blog and have been looking around to see if anyone is left in the blogging world. I see lots of abandoned blogs. A few weavers have stuck with it, and I see a few new here and there (and I'm still looking), but it seems many have shifted to paid forums, paid subscription content, or youtube.
I do find youtube useful for learning or reviewing something, (assuming the presenter can get to the point), but I'm afraid I still prefer blogging. Gosh, I started my fiber journal several computers ago and if it wasn't for that blog, so much of what I learned and done would have been lost. But it's all still there and makes me appreciate the ability to document and keep a photo record online. An occasional comment from a reader is the icing on the cake!
Lots of options on the internet nowadays. I reckon we all tend to migrate toward what suits our personalities.
I just found your blog (new weaver here!) and I have 15 years of content to read!!! So excited!
I don't like FB either, only have it because some things are only available there.
I'm glad you're still blogging! Your archives are a wealth of valuable information, as are your books and YouTube videos.
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