One of the most unexpected pleasures of having a farm blog is that the blog has become a bridge between the nebulous internet and real life. And people, lovely people, have walked across that bridge from the blogosphere to the farm. And then become friends. Not facebook ‘friends’ but real life ‘call me if you need to chat’ friends. 
Yesterday Miss A and Kristy came for another visit. They (and the two male members of their family team) have an enormously popular food and travel blog yet when we get to sit around the table and eat or wander the pastures of the farm with our cameras we are just two ordinary women, a couple of dogs and a beautiful girl. 
This is magic to me. That blogging really does empower us to make real life friendships, should we choose to of course. And jumping that ford of the Interwebs and landing into real life is an important one to me. I personally do not believe that this high tech age that the Internet allows will be around in this format forever. Our reliance on the internet for our information, communication, and company is a listing building. I think that one way or the other it will topple under its own spiders- web construction. I know they say a spiders web is incredibly strong, but I can put my hand through one and pull it all down in a second. When one depends totally on one code for everything – when that code breaks – our lives will break.
This is why I think it is important to look past the internet and develop old fashioned codes and resources built on trust and care. Like: home made meals using gathered ingredients, shopping in real stores, books, digging in the ground with a spade, cars that drive forward and backward and have a radio, milking a cow in a barn, maps, gardening, washing dishes by hand, friendships, calendars, photos in albums, growing your own food and friendship – the old fashioned weekend visit down to the farm to drink a glass of wine with a friend to talk and cook, and read together and take a break from the city. I bet you have even more to add to that list.
I think the old adage about having all your eggs in one basket applies here.
I will use the internet as fully as anyone. I love that I can keep in touch with my family all over the world for FREE. My phone is an incredible resource. Mr Google enables The Old Codger to ask a question of his tablet using only his voice. But I think we should be careful not to depend on it. Keep some paper maps in your old tin filing cabinet with drawers – just in case. Print your photos. Have coffee with a friend who is not a phone.
Now, how I went from talking about a friend visiting to relying on the internet – I have no idea. My mind wanders in the dark hours of the morning I guess. I worry at things.
The Hereford pigs, Molly and Tahiti have bounced back and are noisy and almost totally recovered from their bout with illness. They are still on warm cooked oats and a little milk and eggs but I am hoping that today they can go back on their normal rations. That was a fright. 
I wish I could stay and talk to you longer but the roosters are crowing and there is work to be done before we make crepes for breakfast. 
Then Miss A is going to show us to how to carve a Halloween pumpkin.
I hope you have a lovely day.
celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
38 responses to “Real Life Friends”
I have spent most of my days over the past month doing the kind of thing I did before I had any computer. I did have fun. The wonderful thing about blogging friends, is we get to know them from the inside, without the distraction of the outside packaging. Nine years of blogging and over three hundred face to face meetings, I have only once been disappointed. I have met and remained friends with people from across the globe, appeared on TV and written pieces for five books – three published and two in the long slow process of preparing for publication. None of this would have happened without blogging, it took away my dreadful fear of the blank page, inkblots and having to start over when a mistake was made!
Celi, from your blog alone, I have learned so much, made many friends and really feel part of the fellowship. Thank you for helping me grow!
Just popping in to say how much I do enjoy seeing Miss A grow up: what a lovely, lovely photo! On the other side of the spectrum am finding it quite difficult to be able to differentiate ‘real’ and ‘blog’ friends these days . . . sometimes the ‘blog’ ones seem almost closer than those known for decades. Am touched how the unexpected death of Richard McGary of ‘REMCooks’ has been posted in real grief and sadness around the world. Tho’ on blogbreak opened my postbox to an array of mail just now asking did I know and saying how much he will be missed . . . to me that means ‘real’ friendship . . . . may he rest in peace . . . oh yes, I DO agree with Chgo John . . .
Because of this post, which coincided with a general tidying up of desk and file drawers here, I went back to how I even began to read your blog. I was living in Poitiers, France and trusted the link posted to a recipe by the daughter (Charlotte of The Daily Cure) of a dear friend of mine. Then I went back to your very first post on July 4, 2011. Wow! Daisy was 2 years old, Queenie was a wee heifer, there were guinea hens and sheep and bees and high hopes for a sustainable lifestyle with lots of recipes. And then it became something else, not something less but something richer, deeper, more realistic. Daisy and the sheep and the guineas and the bees and Mary’s Cat are all long gone, as are the goats and the notion of a llama and a vineyard. Your aspirations and your tone are so much more focused today than they were 4 years ago.
Yes, we could all grab that web and pull it down in a second but we would lose so many important lessons that your blog teaches us every day. Not to mention that I’ve just written ChgoJohn’s mother’s recipe for authentic pasta dough on the notepad by my desk.
When is that next book coming out?
Evening time here in Australia ‘liffster’ . . . I ‘came in’ a wee bit later than you and am at present on a socalled ‘blogbreak’ this year . . . matters have changed and ‘progressed’ and been ‘modernized’ since you and I first read . . . much of me wishes myself a few years back . . . Oh, methimks the pasta dough of John’s is zia Lea’s . . . .she would be delighted to know of your comment! And why don’t you ask John Amici when he will write the next book; I would love to know too 🙂 !!
What a wonderful comment – thank you!!
The next book should be on the desk by February – fingers crossed! c
Heart-warming post.
You’ve taught me a lot about blogging and about life.
Blogging has connected so many of us, such a pity we can’t all meet in person.
Have a beautiful week C.
🙂 Mandy xo
I totally agree a million percent with this. I have made some amazing real life friends through blogging and as much as I love all things social media it does not replace real life encounters. Lifting my cup to you!
I agree one million percent with this. I have made some amazing friends through blogging who have become real life friends. As much as I love social media I also crave those face to face encounters and memories that are made. Lifting my cup to you!
Like you, I’ve made some wonderful real-life friends (ie. Beth Ann in the comment above) through blogging. I’m meeting up with one on Friday. You are right that we also need to continue with the old-school way of doing things.
And don’t forget stamps. If the net isn’t there, we still have the ability to communicate, in writing, in the old fashioned, snail-mail kind of way.
Hullo! I love writing letters and sending packages.. but I live thousands of miles from my family so sending things has always been my favourite.. c