Happy Blogoversary To Me!
Yup.
It's true.
January 20, 2008, I began this blog!
After following some blogs out there... and having people question me about my life through my Rimrock English Shepherds website... I hemmed and hawed and bit my fingernails and kicked some dirt and stuck my hands in my pockets.
"Yeah, OK. I can do this."
After a cup of coffee with Daily Coyote, who has never been anything but supportive... a few questions about hosts through some friends online... and I was off!
Though sporadic through the first months... until Daily Coyote told me to be dedicated to my readership... I, slowly... *painfully* slowly... gained readers.
I knew nothing. I struggled with the template... and photo size... and font size... and the overall look. I had a steep learning curve, but I did it.
I wrote the way I talk...
With lots of dotdotdot...
I must pause a great deal in my speech!
Occasionally I'd play with REAL WRITING and try out something like this. But for the most part, I'm just writing/talking like I'm on the phone with a friend who doesn't interrupt!
I've included 2,729 photos in this blog so far. I have 43 videos on vimeo.com... the most watched was the one with the English Shepherd Rescue Gathering in Montana, closely followed by Lucas' Therapy Dog video. My most popular post was the one on Exertional Rhabdomyolysis. It has been easy to see whenever Shreve mentioned me in her Daily Coyote, as my hits would skyrocket for a day or two! but I'm still waiting to break that 15,000 hits in a month ceiling...
People found it difficult to find me. My blog was attached to Rimrock English Shepherds, and unless you were looking for a stockdog, I was hiding in the shadows. After years of writing, I began a search for a new name.
Friends from New Zealand helped me with that... tossing around names... Wyoming, cowboy, ranch, west, ranchwife, anything "western" was fair game.
But my little children's book... written for my boys years ago... and a focus for our then upcoming centennial in 2009... kept singing in my ear. There was nothing in the title that would lead people to me. Finally it sank in... the most popular blogs out there, they rarely have anything to do with their titles either!
Dooce? Whatever that is. The Pioneer Woman? Give me a break, she's hardly pioneer in the western sense of the word... OK... Daily Coyote... yeah! Shreve has done Daily Coyote with the Midas touch. But Shreve had read Red Dirt In My Soul and had a lot to do with me finishing it and selfpublishing it for the Centennial Party and *she* liked the name!
So here I am, January 20, 2011 and I'm still writing. Now I'm Red Dirt In My Soul. I'm on Facebook as RDimS! I have a calendar to sell with my book. I've come a long way.
I have more ideas to come as well... I need to finish the "how I met Vernon story", my dog training ideas are melding, and I'm thinking I'll occasionally start vlogging...
I'm still chatting about ranchlife and cattle and dogs and kids and wildlife and photography and all my various projects! Through my periods of self-doubt and my absence during the illness and passing of my mother, you... my readers... have hung in there with me. I need to thank you for that. Without your comments and your support I would have quit long ago. While it's nice to be chatting with a friend who doesn't interrupt... I LOVE it when you talk back to me! This interaction with people worldwide is amazing... It's easily the best part about blogging.
Thanks for being "part of it all, the red bluffs, the wide creek, the tall cottonwoods, the green grass, the quiet cattle." I'm very glad you have this red dirt in YOUR soul. Thank you!
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January 20, 2010 No entry.
January 20, 2009 Sparkles
January 20, 2008 Description
the great thing about your blog is that you DO talk to us like old friends. i am proud to say that i have a friend in wyoming and you have a faithful reader in north carolina. happy blogoversary carol and i wish you many more years of successful blogging.
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Ah Carol, my day is not complete until I've had my Overlook email. I don't know if I get counted by reading your posts in my mailbox, but I read you EVERY DAY and feel like you're an old friend now.
I love the ranch life stuff because my grandparents were homesteaders in Wyoming in the 1920s, and my mother was born in Glendo, and I spent most of the summers of my youth living with my grandparents in their trailer just traveling around fishing and hiking. And Ten Sleep and the Big Horns were my favorites!
Keep on blogging!
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Congratulations on your blogiversary! I love my morning "trip" out to Wyoming; haven't had enough time to comment lately but I am still here and glad that you are still here. How lucky we are to have you chatting away with us!
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Congratulations and thank you for "talking" to me each day. I feel like we are neighbors. Hey, we are! Wyoming-Colorado.
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i so enjoy your blog (writing)!! glad you did not give up!! here's to another year of you sharing your life with us!! thanks!!
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Carol, another great picture! Like several others, I start every day with seeing what is "going on at the ranch". Yes, i too have red dirt in my soul, just memories of where my roots really are. Keep up the good work.
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Yes, it is wonderful to get to read all about your English Shepherds - see the wonderful Wy. photos. I spent a lot of my youth at Manderson with friends. I hope to get on facebook just to read your writings - but I am sooo busy with Kitty rescue and my ES and Shelties here in Ne. But we shall see. I do love this Blog...
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Carol, I fell in love with your part of the country on a trip some 20 years ago and happily discovered your blog a couple of years ago. I grew up on farms in the Midwest and South and resonate deeply with the connection to the land, to animals, to space to explore and breathe. I rarely comment on blogs but I read you every day and often lose myself in the gorgeous pictures. Thank you for sharing your life and for doing it so faithfully.
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Happy Anniversary. I hope we are as successful in our blogging as you are in yours. I find yours very interesting and entertaining and you are my WYO connection. Because, yes, I too have red dirt in my soul. Born and raised in WYO!
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Happy Anniversary, Carol!
Thank you for your daily tour of Wyoming and ranch life.
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Congrats. I am so glad I stumble on to you.
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Happy Versary!!! I don't remember how I found your site (maybe throught Daily C?) but I check it every day and LOVE IT. Your photos are stunning and your writing is so interesting, and I'm very glad you're here.
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Congratulations on your first blogiversary! Wishing you many more years of continued success!
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Congratulations!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Carol, I read you every day! I don't often comment, but I'm here and love the chance I have to live vicariously out in red dirt country. Thank you!
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Happy Blogoversary, Carol! I found your site through the English Shepherd Club
and I look forward to starting my day with your adventures in writing and photos. I've always had a love for the West, and have enjoyed 2 long trips to see much of it. Sure would love a horse! Hey, maybe there'll be one for me when I get to Heaven!
Your stories are wonderful! Your photography is wonderful! And I like the weather reports - they tell me what's coming to my locale in WNY.
Have a super day, and keep up the good work.
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Congratulations! I just discovered your blog a couple months ago. Keep it up!
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Happy Blogoversary! I am one of those people who found you through the Daily Coyote. I start my day off with your blog every morning so thank YOU for letting us share a small piece of your world every day!
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Carol,
Your postings in my InBox are my favorite thing about getting on the computer every day. I never would have thought that you are only 2 years into this. Your site is so professional; and pictures so good! (I have only 1 comment, and that is that your web pages load very s-l-o-w-l-y. You probably can't do anything about that because of all the pictures; but I just thought I'd put it out there.) Love reading about the doggies and kids.
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Happy blogoversary! I also found you through Daily Coyote and love my daily visit to Wyoming through the 2 blogs. One day I'd like to have a blog. However, I have nothing to write about other than working for a vets & the antics of my crazy pets. *raises glass to your continued success in the blogworld*
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Congrats...it's been good getting to know you!
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I'm one of the ones who came from Daily Coyote. I check your blog daily. It's soooo far away from my life in suburbia, daily commuting, living in an apartment with three dogs... it's an entirely different world.
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So happy you are sharing your wonderful life with me. We moved away from the west several years ago, but Ten Sleep still seems like home to me. Keep the blog going!! We love it.
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I really enjoy your blog! Thanks for all that you share.
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