With big machines racing through the fields and a high, hot Southerly wind, yesterday was loud. The dust from the harvest was whipping around me as I worked.
The rain in the forecast came to nothing.
I feel disconsolate today. While my engagement numbers continue to rise on Substack with one newsletter a week, and two special videos for The Tenners, they continue to decline here at WordPress where I post five times a week.
Though to be fair I write fast every morning – the farm is busy so I often don’t get back to the study until the evening and I am not an evening writer.
So maybe there is less value?
Are you feeling this too? How are your blogs doing?
I don’t care about stats per se but I do care about comments and engagement. I started this blog in 2011 because I was lonely, farming all the way out here by myself. You are why I am here. To keep in touch with you.
And this awful and frankly frightening election cycle is feeding the flight in my fight response. Maybe that is where my disquiet originates.
Anyway.
The corn is almost in from this field but the ground and the field is very dry. The fire risk is real with these big hot machines.
The harvester is still silent this morning.
The little black pigs.
Every evening I go in to teach the piglets how to make a big high deep bed to sleep in. They need to learn to burrow under the straw. And with no mother to teach them I do.
I layer up the hay and tunnel inside – they follow me in and think this is a great play time.
Winter is coming.
But not yet! The leaves began to fall in earnest yesterday and all I do is rake them back under the trees or into the gardens. Leaves are gold. Don’t waste them.
I have potted up these little oak trees to overwinter in the glasshouse. (I drilled four holes into the bottom of these tins that are discarded from the restaurant. The tins are a great size for potting up plants. Very old fashioned). Later today or maybe tomorrow I will plant 6 maples down into the Fellowship Forest. Maples grow fast and start sinking carbon just as fast.
Oak is not so fast! But longer living.
Today I will take Camera House out to play. That’s guaranteed to cheer me up!
I wrote this a couple of days ago:
You can’t keep joy in a bottle. It does not belong in a box.
Joy can be as fleeting as the pause between the tick of seconds. That tiniest of sublime moments when your dreams are as clear as memories.
Watch out for this joy. It will come each and every day. Look for it winking past. See it for what it is.
This speck of joy is a dreams nourishment.
And all you need is a drop.
Celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
61 responses to “The air itself was loud yesterday”
I read all your WordPress posts mostly daily. And also when you post on Substack, and Instagram. Always like so you know I’ve been by! Don’t always comment as I don’t always have something to say. I mostly interface with reading WordPress blogs and commenting logged in via the Jetpack app on my phone.Trying to do otherwise can be technologically gremliny. I write my own blog posts directly logged into WordPress on my laptop. I get less direct likes and comments on the actual blog than I used to but I share links to the posts via Facebook & Instagram and get more likes and comments there. I really value the blog community & company so keep on but adapt as well.
adaptation is certainly key. You are great at putting on different platforms! I see you!
The farm is only one part of it, but I love your blog and all of your writing. Write when it works for you and you still enjoy it, you’re a magnificent writer and storyteller. My views are down as well, and I’ve heard other bloggers say the same
do you think it had anything to do with being an election year? People are so fraught that they can’t think of calm ordinary things until it is all over? Maybe?
that certainly could be, and also wp keeps doing things to our accounts that are hard to work around at times –
I’ve blogged a fairly long time. Engagement waxes and wanes. I can never attribute it to anything in particular. Maybe it is the season, political climate, weather, cosmic rays, … , who knows? Maybe it is me not working at it hard enough. Of the hundreds of followers, only a very very small number of them are regulars that are willing to comment and take time to say what they think. Many of the followers are bots, I think. And AI will only make it harder and less real. 😦
You are right. It is hard to know if our blogs are getting attention from 800 people a day or 760 clicks determined by bot programs. But we surely do write for the real people who show up. I agree that I can do more – by going out to other blogs more than I do. Winter will help with that! By giving me more time.
Everything will do better with attention!
Blogging isn’t as fresh and new as 15 yrs ago. It has matured with lots more people and tools. I suspect there will be change like this as it matures. I wonder how it will look and feel in 5-10 more yrs. Will I/we be involved?
I hope to be.
I read without fail everyday (for years), and would miss it a lot if I didn’t. It’s part of my morning routine. I look forward to it and feel like a check-in with family. It’s always a positive space and that is rare online!
I shut down my old blog. I wasn’t updating but was still paying to maintain it. I just didn’t have time and at a different life stage from when I started. Though I miss it. I have been thinking about starting a new one. The old one was about cooking and cooking with my little girl. The little girl grew up into a teenager and things change. Now I am thinking on the lines of sustainable, still cooking but also mending and going back a little to the old ways. A new niche. I don’t know if anyone would read or if I’d get followers, but I feel the need to put some good or helping vibes out into the world.
I think sustainable and mending and all those things are very current and very useful to know. Sewing! Oh I wish I could sew. When you start again look carefully for the right platform for your work. Substack does feel like more of a community where-as WordPress is old fashioned and a little top heavy I think. And let me know! Let us all know!
I always enjoy and read your posts, even if I don’t take the time to comment. I will usually leave a “like” to let you know I was here. I look forward to your farm posts and the pictures, but I also love the pictures and updates from your travels.
After steadily increasing every year, my blog stats for 2024 are down YTD over last year, but I have seen an increase in the last couple of months.
Hmm – that is interesting – to be fair I have not even looked at my stats. I am very very comment driven. By next week a couple more hours a day will open up so I am hoping to get out to others blogs again – more often.This might be contributing to my isolated feeling – the bums up and work hard thing that is late summer. Thank you so much for hanging in there with me as I shilly shally about!
Your blog is the first thing I read every morning when I get to work. Make a cup of coffee and read TKG to get myself going. I love all the stories about the animals, the photos, the humour and the positivity. Your little poem about Joy today is wonderful. Definitely something to save.
Good morning Cathy and thank you! I wrote the morning entry with a pot of tea so reading it with a cup of coffee sounds just right !
Dear you, I feel for your state of mind and spirit. I feel the same way. I try to be clear eyed and open minded. My biggest fear is not which way it goes, but how it goes in either case. I so miss the days when you could disagree with a neighbour and the world didn’t split apart at the seams. As for the issue of following/data etc., I feel like, since Covid, we have all been assaulted by digital communication. Yours is never an assault — I wanna be clear about that — but I often feel the need to retreat from the computer and the screens. The demand to be on screen for work, for social life, for everything has increased so much, and I am often exhausted by it. Back, neck, eyes…I just want to run away in search of the real, the physical. So the issue isn’t you…it’s the pressure exerted by all the rest. I feel like I am completely out of control where the digital sphere is concerned. It is not what I want it to be. I want more of this (you) and less of the need to cancel anywhere from 50-150 unwanted political emails PER DAY! What is everyone else experiencing? I am curious.
A day!! Oh my word – horrible. I get maybe 2. But I am unable to vote here so many I am not in that data base? Switching to W/A
I’ve blogged since 2011 too, though I took a long hiatus from 2017 until earlier this year. I have also noticed engagement falling and stats, too. I used to get a lot of results from search engines but now have hardly any. It has made me wonder if something has changed in the algorithms.
I don’t think it is just you — I used to get a lot of comments but now only my regulars keep commenting.
Maybe WordPress.com sites don’t show up in searches any more. Or maybe blogging has simply had its hey-day and people have moved on.
But we always go find a blog when we are looking for a recipe – right? So I don’t know either what the problem is. But I do know that I have a wonderful base of readers – though I feel like I am languishing – not thriving. Do you know what I mean?
I absolutely LOVE this Celi!
You can’t keep joy in a bottle. It does not belong in a box.
Joy can be as fleeting as the pause between the tick of seconds. That tiniest of sublime moments when your dreams are as clear as memories.
Watch out for this joy. It will come each and every day. Look for it winking past. See it for what it is.
This speck of joy is a dreams nourishment.
And all you need is a drop.
And it is so true! We need to remember this when feeling down. To walk outside and watch a bird flying. To rejoice in a flower. To see the beauty in a fallen leaf. And you have such a way of opening and sharing the joy with us. Thank you for you! And for continue to share your life, dreams, and aspirations with us.
We hear you. We see you. I have had people notice that I have not been as active on WP as usual, which is simply because currently everyday life is taking me longer to manage due to the knee injury, and the pleasure of long, leisurely browsing has had to be curtailed. But I try hard to catch up and comment each time, and I read you in WordPress each time, so that is one tiny percentage I can believe is doing some good.
We have all seen our figures fall; as you know so well, life can be demanding, but your friends know who their friends are. Don’t be despondent, you still have so much goodness (value, nutrition, hope, beauty) to share, and we are all here for it.
The nature of social media has changed; everything is so much more instant, sound-bitey and condensed. I cannot conceive of splitting my attention across so many fleeting, flickering ephemera. Stay grounded, solid, real, considered, thoughtful, hopeful and dearly loved by your friends far and near.
Good morning! It has been quite awhile since I’ve checked on any of my WordPress friends. Not sure what happened but the forced feel of JetPack (what is that anyway) and platform changes in WordPress sent me packing. I hate to admit my reluctance to change but there it is. I do miss the Farmy. I’m so glad you are still here!
Yes! Still here!
I love that you want to keep in touch with us. It is a pleasure to read your posts! I would so miss you if you stopped. Sorry I don’t always comment, I’m usually way behind and always trying to catch up! As for my blog, gosh it would help if I posted!