Breaking my Blogging Cherry

I've been hanging around on the internet in one place or another for a lot of years. I checked out the blogosphere when it arrived, but preferred to spend my online time participating in discussion venues and husband-hunting.

The husband hunt was a big success. We've been together for almost 10 years now, and are happy as can be. As the title of my blog would suggest, we live in a little shack on top of a hill. Technically, it's not a shack, it's an old mobile home. It's kind of a wreck, but we love it. It suits us. We're likely to do stuff like use a circular saw in the kitchen in the wintertime, and you just don't do that in a nice house.

We're out in the country on a couple of acres between the field and the woods. My daughter and her family live down the driveway, the next nearest neighbors are a quarter of a mile away and we can't see them from here. We've seen white-tailed deer, wild turkey, pheasants, red-tailed hawks, racoons, possums, and more in our backyard. I've got all the room I could ever need for a garden. It's pretty danged sweet.

The discussion participation has been less successful. Back in my early online days, I hung out mostly in soapmaker venues. You wouldn't think that would be a hotbed of controversy and drama, but apparently these are things that are present in virtually every discussion venue. There were cliques and divas and folks who knew the One True Way. It has been pretty much the same in every discussion venue I've participated in since, regardless of the topic.

These days I'm interested in current events. I listen to the news and I read the news. It's about impossible to find a place online to discuss the news that isn't just really ugly. There's little in the comments section of any media outlet that's worth reading. There's a lot of anger and blame-throwing, strawmen and ad hominem coming from both sides. A lot of heat and very little light.

But I digress...

In my blog, I'll be writing about life here on the hill. My grandkids, my garden, my hubby and our quest to turn this into our dream home. I'll share the stuff we learn along the way, and hope that folks will share their experiences with me.

I'll also be pointing out news that I think is interesting or important. I'm sure I'll be offering an opinion or three. I'd like to hear from other folks about this stuff, but I'm not interested in fighting with anyone. I'm going to try to be respectful in the way that I address other points of view, and I expect the same from those who post comments on my blog.

I think I'm going to stick more with the homestead-y stuff than the news and issues. It's more fun.

FT