Urban Homesteading in Portland and Beyond
Urban homesteading is not usually the term I use to refer to what I’ve been doing for the best twelve years or so. I tend towards kitchen gardening or urban farming. And these days, I’m transitioning towards rural food production at Amaranta Farm. But I see those who do call themselves urban homesteaders as allies in the same movement, and I’d like to see that movement grow….
A Virtual Haircut
Virtual identity crisis: perhaps every blogger reaches this point.
My twitter and facebook universes have expanded to include neighbors, family, people I don’t know, some I may know too well. So I find myself more consciously thinking about what I want these various audiences to know (…)
Blog Your Way to Success With Hairy Legs
I’ve been blogging for about a year now and am finally discovering the secret to building an audience: hairy legs, lots and lots of hairy legs….
Celebrate the Solstice with Laughter
I began blogging a year ago by reflecting on the challenges of Balancing Work and Play. I still haven’t figured that out, but I know what helps with that and with surviving this dark season: humor….
New Website for Poem Drafts
I’ve started a new website for my poetry drafts – www.poems.elizabethenslin.org. That’s where I’ve posted my response to “Get Your Poem On #105.”
Chameleon Blogging: Changes to “Species of the Week”
Yeah, I know. This is a Carolina anole, not a chameleon. When I was a kid, I lusted after chameleons. But anoles change color too, and they were cheaper and easier to find in local pet stores, so that’s what I got….
Website for Ajamvari Farm
I finally finished the website for Ajamvari Farm, a family run permaculture project in Nepal that hosts volunteers. I helped develop the farm fifteen-some years ago while living in Nepal and discovered a passion for growing food that still runs strong today. The website provides information on opportunities for homestays and volunteering at the farm [...]
My Remote Office
The dilapidated house is home to many packrats, a frog that lives in the old stove, a few birds, and many wasps. But the phone line goes to the house (and thanks to Jerry’s engineering now goes to the shady side), so that’s where I do my online work. It’s a lovely quarter mile walk from the yurt….
WordPress Problem Solved
I guess I had some version of the WordPress 2.8 “White Screen of Death” issue as well as an allocated memory error. I discovered my “Add Into plugin” created some trouble for my pages, so I deactivated that. I also increased my memory from 32M to 64M. I found the most concise and direct [...]
WordPress Upgrade Problems
Just discovered that the content from my permanent pages (e.g., about, species of the week, humor) has disappeared from the public eye. It’s odd because I still see it in the editor, so hopefully it hasn’t gone too far. But iff you click the tabs above, you will get a blank page. It suspect it’s [...]
Waking to the Wallowas
We’re heading out to our property in Flora, Oregon. We stayed the night in Enterprise to avoid navigating our muddy, mile-long driveway in the dark and also to sort out exchanging our tractor for another model that starts better. While my partner works on the tractor issue, I’m taking advantage of views of the Wallowa [...]
The Clade
This week I began cross-posting my “Species of the Week” series at The Clade. Since Rachel Shaw is already writing a wonderful column of the same name, I changed the name of my column there to “Biodiversions” (thanks again to Rachel for suggesing the new name). According to one of the founders, Chris Clarke: The [...]
Kreativ Blogger Award
Thanks to Both Erin at Freckled Writer and Carole at Watermaid’s Weblog for awarding me with the Kreativ Blogger Award. I’ve only been blogging a few months, so it’s an honor to be recognized by sister bloggers out there. I have now been charged with the task of identifying seven things I love and passing [...]
Mastering the Art of a Tweet
Bored with coughing and sniffling last week, I began surfing the web to sample various social networks. I’ve spent the last few months learning how to use WordPress and its various plugins. Hours of back and neck pain have helped me sympathize with those who verb the noun widget. But Facebook? Delicious? Linked In? I [...]
To Blog or Not
After several weeks of dabbling here, I’m still torn over the twenty-first century quandary: to blog or not? “Why I Blog,” an essay by Andrew Sullivan, senior editor of Atlantic Monthly, has helped put the practice in perspective and inspired me to continue exploring. Sullivan considers historical cousins to the weblog: the ship’s log, diary [...]
Balancing Work and Play
It’s snowing here in Portland, Oregon, and I’m wondering whether or not to start a blog. Django – my eighty-two pound, chocolate, standard poodle- doesn’t care. He’s been hinting at other activities all day with barks, yawns, groans, hopeful looks, nudges, playbows. I’ve been ignoring him to work on this fledgling website, respond to a literary journal interested in one of my essays, send another essay on its first submissions round, eat lunch, answer phone calls, wash dishes, read some blogs to see if I really want to become one of millions sharing the minutiae of everyday life….
