Toot! Toot!

I bet you thought this would be a post about a train. This is a post of the half way mark of 2014 and my blogging stats. How boring is that? OK so I will start you with a picture that I sure hope posts as I want it to. This picture gives you a bit of an idea of what attracts readers to my post. Well it isn’t my camera use ability, just the subject matter at times.

Cats ready to play.

I had to turn the picture to get both tails into it. I had the big zoom lens on, and couldn’t get back far enough before they pounced. With cats, at least with mine, you have to be quick to snap the button or the moment is gone.

Another topic that seems to garner interest on my blog is the big old garden. I stepped it off today. I know about how to step to get a 12 inch count. I came up with 30 on the back fence and 40 on the sides. Wow, I didn’t realize it was that big. And to think the potatoes are off to the side. Hopefully we don’t go any bigger. Having the fence up helps keep us from sneaking a little more land into the garden each year. Well, here is a view from the dike.

Potato plot. We filled it with the left overs from last year’s harvest.

The garden view from the dike. Note all the rows that need weeding if the rain would end for just three days.

So here is the deal, I have been blogging for 34 months. To date I have had 15,425 views. Not really that many in terms of real blogging, but I will take it. My most views for a month and a daily average (32) happened last November. Things had been slipping and sliding ever since until this past June (672) which was my fifth overall high month. Yeah for the rebound. OK, so reality check tells me that some bloggers get my monthly totals in a day or a week, but like I said before, I will take it and be happy. Of course I have never been in the big, Freshly Pressed group, but after reading some of those posts, I know that I never will fit there, and there is no point to bother trying for that status. I do what I do and that is it.

I have posted 753 times not counting this one. Some of those were re-blogs so they shouldn’t really count, but I forgot to check on that math. I guess it is posted on my sidebar, so the information is out there. My best day of views was 91 last November, and I still don’t know what it was all about except that people were checking things out after Thanksgiving.

Now here is the other part of blogging. I have 206 followers, which makes me pretty excited. I realize that some of them are no longer blogging, but they haven’t been purged at this time. I will take time every now and again to go to the sites of those who follow me to see if they have a blog I want to follow. Many times I have found great posts and bloggers by doing that.

I try to limit the number of blogs that I follow to 50 because I feel that is a number I can get to know. I am a small town, small college, small school, small church girl. I don’t just want to know a name or a face. I want to know who you are in terms of what you do, like, love, etc… In our college, we knew the mothers, fathers and grandparents of most of our friends. I have carried that attitude throughout life. I believe that if we would know people better, we would…, well on the other hand….

Next issue is comments and likes: My blog stats have recorded 1,679 comments. I have had to remove only a couple when someone blasted me about a comment that a made on another post in support of something that blogger had posted. The person came onto my “about” page and let me know how off base I was. I returned a retort then zapped both. Of the past 1,000 comments I have made 436 of them. I try not to hog the space, but I feel it important to acknowledge comments with at least a thank you for the comment. I also went back and did the math and found that I have 1,972 likes. Makes me feel great.

I also try to like posts quite often. In fact, if I have been reading a post I almost always “like” it. I have to really disagree with your post not to hit “like.” And, I rarely like without reading. I know that many of my likes come from cruisers, you know the ones who pick a topic and scroll down the page hitting like on several posts hoping that someone will come and check them out. I do sometimes, but it is easy to tell when someone has liked but not at least viewed. It is all in the math.

Well, I hope that have not bored you too badly today. I have a few more pictures, but I think those will go in another post.