Blogs that depict images of the countryside or a farm draw me back again and again. I love blogs that welcome me to their home, their farm, their part of the country. I love being a virtual visitor. I may enjoy a few images of your critters, those buds on your plants, your superbly delicious dinner plate, that amazing sunset...but pull back, let me see more. I want to see your critters playing in their pasture, in the barnyard or on your front porch. I want to see that front porch, just not a bannister. Invite me into your kitchen and make me feel like I could pull up that stool in the corner and watch while you cook. And when you take that sunset photo, take it from your back window and let me see what you see, let me see the whole picture.
I also love blogs that don't sugarcoat country life. It isn't all picture perfect. It's a tough life at times. From finances, to death, to downright filthy jobs, there is a price to pay living in paradise. But I love hearing those stories. Maybe because it makes me feel less alone, or that I have a mutual connection with the author of that blog, but whatever it is those are the ones that draw me back.
With this realization, I gave my own blog a good look. Was I offering the same open frankness? Was I being honest to the hardships of country life? Was I drawing back and letting people in? I believe I have been fairly open with the realities of country living, but truthfully won't remember to post about an incident until much later. Sometimes I can get so caught up in those incidents that I forget to mention them in my blog. I will make more of a concscience effort in the future to share with my readers all the good along with the bad.
And I know I'm guilty of taking far too many close-up photos of my critters. I suppose that is an easy one to succomb to as we adore our critters and think everyone will love them just as much as we do. Even though we forget that our readers don't get a sense of our critter's personality through photos. So I will work on pulling back. Inviting you into the barn first before I slam you with a photo of my adorable goat's nose shoved into the camera. And this one is a hard one, but I will work harder at inviting you, my virtual visitors, into my home. I'm not especially proud of my home as it is a work in progress so maybe I will bring you along on this journey of renovating and redecorating. Just as long as you bring a hammer or paintbrush along with you. :)
So with these new goals for my blog theme in mind, I will share with you my view from my windows next to where I'm sitting right now. We had moved my computer to another room to accomodate the livestream camera hooked up to the new puppies and I'm so liking it's new home. My view before was the pond on one side...and our manure pile on the other. Lovely. Not. But here in this new room, I still have a partial view of the pond on my left....