Author: Veronica

  • Yellow Dog Day

    Since Susie died, I find myself sitting on the dogs home website more often than not, looking at the imploring eyes of the dogs there. When we first moved in here and wanted a dog, that’s where we went. We came home with a 7 week old wiggling puppy, Seven.

    When we wanted a second dog, we looked at the dogs home again, but there wasn’t anything really suitable – then Susie sort of fell into our laps and then we were done.

    But I couldn’t stop thinking about the dogs there, the friendly happy dogs who pressed themselves against the edges of their cages hoping for some love, or the dogs out walking who were just so happy to see people and be walked.

    The dogs home is actually brilliantly set up, with runs and play areas, and with volunteers who walk dogs all day.

    Doesn’t mean it’s a place that you would want to live there, however.

    So, Susie died and I can’t stop thinking about another dog.

    We’ll get there eventually, I know this. Nathan isn’t ready for another dog yet and my common sense is kicking in, knowing that if we’re going to bring home a new dog, then Spring is a better time to be doing it than Winter.

    And I keep watching the photos of the dogs, seeing most disappear and new ones appear and I’m happy that someone out there has adopted a dog that I feel so sorry for.

    When we’re ready, we’ll be bringing home a dog and giving them a second chance. A new life with property to play on and children to run with.

    Seven needs a new playmate and my heart aches for all the abandoned dogs out there.

    Our Newest Addition

    Susie as a puppy. I still miss her.

    Seven

    Seven, our happy dog. She would love a playmate.

    Pedigree are currently running an adoption drive, raising awareness about the thousands of dogs stuck in dogs homes and RSPCA’s across the country. All this wonderful family potential, going to waste, pining up against a cage door, hoping for someone to pat them as they walk past.

    It’s no life for a dog.

    Pedigree have also offered to donate 1 bowl of dogfood for every person who ‘Likes’ their page on Facebook. I did. And then I made Nathan like it too.

    Because until I can bring home another dog from the dogs home, I’m going to continue to watch the website, seeing the photos come and go and feeling bad the whole time.

    ***

    Pedigree are currently running a campaign and I was invited to take part, however this is not a sponsored post and I was not paid.

  • Blogging long term.

    Or, alternately titled, Why bloggers who have been around for a long time, don’t seem to comment or visit your blog.

    So you start a blog. Maybe you found an awesome blog written by a hugely popular blogger and loved it, or maybe you’ve heard about them and want to try it out for yourself. No matter the reason, you’ve started a blog. Yay!

    And so, once you’ve gotten over your ohmygod my blog is only brand new, no one is going to like me nerves, then you start commenting. And you comment on the big bloggers and you comment on their entire blogroll and you comment and comment and….

    …nothing. Occasionally a click through if you’ve been commenting on high traffic blogs and said something interesting, but no one comments back.

    You feel a little discouraged, but never mind! I’ve read the big blogger’s archives and there are no comments for like, months of posts! It will be fine.

    So you write some more and it’s pretty good. You comment some more and someone comments back. You click to their blog because I’m not all snooty like the big bloggers are and you read and she’s lovely and you comment. You notice that she’s been blogging for around the same amount of time you have and you add her to your reader. She’s just as grateful for a comment and does the same to you.

    You have connected. You’re doing this blogging thing and you’re making friends.

    You do this with another twenty women or so, women whom you email with, you comment backwards and forwards and you’re good friends. You join twitter and you’re not terrified of being alone because there are your girls. Your posse.

    Time stretches on and you add more bloggers to your reader, bigger blogs, controversial blogs, I mean, you can’t not be reading what everyone else is reading, right?

    And suddenly, you turn around and you’re getting 20 comments a post and you’re getting, while not a huge amount, okay traffic.

    Then, one of your posse stops blogging. Maybe something happens in her real life, maybe she gets bored. She stops.

    Someone else starts updating only once a month.

    You fall out with someone, or decide that they’ve gotten boring. You unsubscribe.

    You go through your reader, looking for blogs that are now dead (and wow, you won’t realise how many there are until you start) and you unsubscribe. You stop reading blogs that you’ve been subscribed to for a long time, because meh. They’re still awesome blogs, just, I don’t need to keep up with the controversy, or follow a blog because everyone else does anymore.

    You wittle down who you’re subscribed to and one day, you wake up and your reader only has 10 updated items and you’ve got hardly any comments and wonder where everyone went.

    ****

    You see, when you start blogging, you connect with women who started around the time you did. Your traffic grows together and you become friends and follow each other and read and laugh and comment.

    And then, as your blog gets older and new bloggers shoot out of the woodwork, you find new people commenting and reading, but somehow, time flies and you don’t get a chance to click over to their blog, or if you do, you forget to comment or subscribe.

    You’ve been doing this blogging thing for so long that while every new commenter is a fuzzy feeling in your stomach, it’s not a burning need to subscribe back to them.

    Basically, you’ve become stuck in a rut. Reading the same blogs for 2 years and forgetting to add new ones to your reader.

    Sure, you’ll add new blogs occasionally, but the writing has to be extraordinary. Like, SixYearMed, or Sweet|Salty extraordinary.

    Or you have to connect instantly and want to get to know them better.

    And really, you just forget. You love your commenters and you enjoy their blogs, but you turn around and realise that 6 weeks have passed and you’ve forgotten to check their blog back, or subscribe to them.

    That kind of thing makes you feel like shit.

    It’s easy to continue to read only the blogs you’ve been following for a long time, because you don’t need to learn their backstory. You don’t need to spend time hunting through archives to work out how old their children are, or why they started blogging, or who the hell Danny is.

    But, it also means that large bloggers, they’re stagnating a little bit. They forget to link when they find a brilliant new blog, like they did in the early days. They don’t participate in awards or memes, because they know that those posts don’t get any traffic or comments.

    And slowly, they notice their own comments dwindling, because that tight knit group of women who all started at the same time, or who connected from the get-go, they start to move away from networking and the community of blogging.

    I mean, if I *know* Marylin is reading every single one of my posts, and I’m reading every single one of hers, are we still obligated to comment all the time?

    ***

    I’ve done every single one of these things. Most of my bloggy friends, the ones whose posts I don’t skip if I’m busy, they’re women I either connected with instantly, or who started around the same time I did and we’ve become friends.

    Bloggers stagnate and without a huge effort to find new blogs to add to my reader, I forget to. Especially as I’m mostly incredibly time poor.

    However, I’m making an effort, to start adding new blogs to my reader. To learn their backstory and make new bloggy friends and to remind myself, if they don’t click back and visit me here, that I know exactly why they haven’t.

    And now, I’m reminding everyone who might feel like they’re stagnating to do the same thing.

    Make a new friend this week.

    Comment on their blog.

    Subscribe.

    Link.

    And if you could have one person reading your blog on a regular basis, who would you choose?

    I’d probably pick The Bloggess for Sleepless Nights and Shannon for Veronica Foale.

    You?

  • The mystery of the magical tap that could turn on by itself. Almost.

    As dusk fell, I trudged over to feed the ducks – they were clustered around their water container and I figured that they were probably hungry. Amy generally feeds them of a morning, but I don’t remember her asking for help with the pellets this morning, so the ducks were hungry.

    A little bit of back story:

    We have access to water from the river, pumped right to our doorstep. This water waters the garden, keeps the tank for flushing the toilet full, waters the trees and keeps the duck containers full. In effect, we have a giant hose running from one end of the paddock to the other, being dragged to wherever we need water next.

    The tap for this hose lives in the paddock next door, which I can just reach with my hand if I pop my arm through the fence and strain.

    Anyway.

    So as I wandered over to the ducks, I noticed the last little bit of light glinting on a … puddle?

    A puddle? That’s odd. We haven’t had that much rain.

    As I got closer, I noticed that the hose was running and oh wow, the back of the paddock was flooded.

    I fed the ducks and grumbling about my forgetful partner the whole time, traipsed back to the house to growl at him for leaving the water running.

    ‘Nat! Why is the hose running?’

    ‘I don’t know.’

    His face doesn’t have the characteristic glint he gets when he is fibbing to me.

    ‘The hose is running. You must have forgotten to turn it off!’

    ‘No. I didn’t turn it on. When did you fix the duck’s water last? You must have forgotten about it.’

    ‘No. I remember turning it off, because I hurt my shoulder doing it.You certain you didn’t forget to turn it off? Remember I asked you to do the ducks water yesterday afternoon?’

    ‘Well yes, but I forgot. So it wasn’t me.’

    ‘Maybe the farmer?’

    ‘Maybe the farmer.’

    ‘Surely he wouldn’t.’

    ‘Hmmmmmm.’

    ‘Anyway, I’m going to go and turn it off, duck’s water should be full now.’

    As I walked over to the other side of the property I looked for clues – were there tyre tracks leading up to the tap? No? The farmer NEVER walks to the tap, he drives over, through the waist high grass.

    Funny, the grass is all flattened.

    I reached my hand through and ….

    Oh wow.

    That’s right. I remember seeing that.

    The tap is covered in dry saliva.

    The paddock is, at the moment, full of cows.

    Well, steers anyway. (castrated males)

    Half grown steers. Little more than weaned babies.

    And yesterday, they were standing around the tap, mouthing it and using it to scratch their faces.

    The tap was only turned on half a turn. The pressure is the same no matter how far you turn it on, but we turn it on all the way, just in case. Just in case of what? I don’t know, don’t judge me.

    The cows, they’d scratched and mouthed so much that they’d turned on the water.

    Wow.

    Remind me to keep an eye on the hose from now on?

  • The ethics of blogging

    Last night I sat on a panel and we spoke about online media (new media) and the ethics involved in using social media, among many other things.

    It went really well. I was nervous, of course, right up until we started and then it was fine.

    I came away with some things to think about and think about them I did. At 3am. When I couldn’t sleep. Sigh.

    Anonymous comments – what value do they hold? Do they still hold value if the person has a differing point of view to yourself?

    I think anonymous comments can and do add value to a conversation. People will share things anonymously that for whatever reason they couldn’t share commenting with their name. I think anonymous comments and whether they should be allowed through are always going to come down to the tone of the comment itself.

    Of course, I still get that sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach when I see a comment from anonymous, but that’s a hangover from trolls and such.

    Now the conversation was more geared towards why a news website, The Mercury in particular would allow comments from anonymous readers if they’re not adding to the news – and the simple answer is that people like to participate in the conversation. People like to share their views and in my opinion, doing so anonymously is fine, so long as the tone of the comment is respectful. That’s called debate.

    Of course, we’re not all going to agree on things all of the time and so at the end of the day, some people will wonder why a comment went through, or didn’t go through as the case may be.

    Yet another reason why moderators on news sites are so very very important.

    What are the ethics of blogging and new media?

    Blogging doesn’t have a code of ethics as such, we don’t answer to anyone else and I think that is a lot of the problem between ‘new’ media and ‘old’ media – or traditional journalists and bloggers. Journalists can sometimes see bloggers as rogues, unanswerable to anyone else, writing on the internet, whereas bloggers see journalists stealing quotes without linking and acting holier than thou. (obviously not the journalists I was speaking to last night, who were all lovely).

    We need to bridge that gap and as bloggers, realise that we are part of the media too. We might be talking about our families, or food, or reviewing products, but we are media too and we need to be ethical.

    And without a code of ethics, and laws to enforce them, bloggers are going to have to rely on their good sense and their peers to work out what is acceptable and what isn’t. It’s remembering the good manners we were taught in primary school and putting them to use. It’s never nice to bully, or harass and you can disagree with something without turning it into a personal vendetta.

    We might be ‘playing’ on the Internet, but we’re all adults here and we need to act like that.

    The ethics of blogging are the ethics that we hold ourselves. We need to rely on our moral standards and ask ourselves, does this feel right? Would I like to read this written about me? Because that celebrity/blogger/journo that we bitch about on twitter, or on our blogs, they’re real people too.

    Sometimes it’s about saying, yes, I know I can, but should I?

    Definitely some interesting things to think about anyway and I’ll be interested to see how media evolves to hopefully embrace bloggers and our online medium over the next few years.

    Finally, I’d just like to quickly thank the Walkley Foundation for sponsoring the forum last night and the other three speakers, Philip Young, online editor at the Mercury, Nicola Goc, Senior Lecturer on Journalism at the University and Kylie Eastley, writer and blogger. It was good fun and amazing to meet the three of you. And thank you to Pat O’Donnell from the MEAA for moderating.

  • Tomorrow Night

    Normally, I don’t tell the internet before I go somewhere. Instead I tell them after I’ve done it.

    But.

    This is where I’m going to be tomorrow (Thursday) night.

    Click the image to see it full size.

    So yeah. Wow.