Monday, January 14, 2013

Digital dilution

I've been writing this blog since 2005, after I gave up my career as a journalist. In skips, hops and jumps, it chronicles our search for a home from our droughted-out farm in Colorado and our move to Arkansas. Some of the best writing is early in the blog, when I only came to it muse-inspired.
Since our move, I've viewed it mostly as a way to share our life with my friends and family we left behind. It covers whatever I think might interest them. This past year, I've tried to consider it as a way to connect with folks I don't know, to let them share our life on our farm. And for several years, I've used it as an adjunct to our flock book.
I write about sheep for sale, I take pictures of which ewes are in with rams, so people wanting lambs can consider them. I write when we start breeding season and when we pull the rams from the ewe pens. I love taking pics of my pretty Jacob sheep and I love sharing them. This year, we started breeding with Cowslip and Boomer in the sheep flock, and Herkimer and Yampa for the goats. I remember taking the pictures and writing... something.
So yesterday, when I wanted to start a lambing date calendar, I went back to look for those posts... nothing. I searched the year and considered. I knew it was September... well maybe October, we did breed late this year. I dyed some more warp yarn and washed the gorgeous Thyme wool yarn that I had spun on Saturday.
Then I remembered the Common Threads Facebook page.
Yep, there were the breeding dates (Sept. 19 and 25th) that I was looking for. And all the information I needed, "Cowslip loves Boomer."
As digital has become a more pervasive part of our life, I've gone from poetic writings of surreal moonlight nights to adolescent graffiti. Does it matter?

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