Methinks:
No matter how old we are,
our personal growth
will always be
larger than our awareness
and ego.
You may feel life slowing down
but your soul
continues to absorb
all the joy of
your personal growth.
❤️🙏🏻🕊️
Is It Just Me?
Update 11 July 2025: Stats are back to normal, no old posts, and the bot is gone, no inflated numbers.
Update 8 July 2025: The research of my blog continues as somebody appears to be reading every published post. It does feel unsettling.
In the last few weeks, my blog stats are showing posts from over a year ago or more. Even in the last 24 hours, the stats are for old posts.
Usually that means somebody is researching your blog. Given my great upset about Salty Pumpkin being in a website title selling online, it is a possible reason there is research.
This has happened in the past a few times but not as much as now.
Are your general stats for 7 days and 24 hours for old blog posts?
Thank you
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| Silver Mound |
Day 186 if Week 27 July 2025
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| Lake Champlain in July 2025 |
Interesting tid-bit about a smart television, Bluetooth pairing request pop up notice shows up on my TV screen.
A Google search later, i learn that a device is trying to connect to my TV. Instructions show you can turn off the Bluetooth connection in settings. Done.
I wonder if that feature is automatically on when the television is set up or somebody turned it on. Anyway, it is off now. What else will pop up?
Have a No Pop Ups Weekend!
Have a fresh plum
Draw a foot bridge
Talk a walk with friends
Read about local farms
Make a nice green salad
Tell a plate a funny story
Sing to your front door
Try a hot fudge sundae
with peach ice cream
The Petunias & the Milkweed
I was told hummingbirds like red petunias.
This year, the petunias are redder than red.
It is good to see something going well for something else.
I might have seen a hummingbird this year wiz by. As yet, none have been seen by me at the petunias. I expect there will be more butterflies this year with more flowers blooming.
I am glad to report the milkweed plants I nearly flattened last week when I fell are all doing well, even the one that had a small break.
To protect them on a very windy night, I was pushing a small section of wire garden fencing in the ground to protect them. The wire hit stone and bent. I saw a mass of green ferns coming at my face. Not going that way!
Instead, I rolled over to the side onto the sidewalk. I got up real fast.
The funny part is that next door there were EMTs chatting at a stretcher on the porch. The hydrangeas are so high they probably wouldn’t see the blur of an old lady rolling out of the ferns, it happened that quick. Makes me laugh when I think about. It felt like a comedy skit.
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| Rolled from upper right to sidewalk on left |
The knee that hit the concrete has a spot of discomfort, shooting pain sometimes, no broken skin. I didn’t see the bruise until this morning, right on that spot. Weird it would take days to show up.
Anyway, lesson learned to not put one’s weight on a flimsy wire fence. Use arm muscles not body weight.
Big Dreams
If a very precious big dream falls apart, then does the mind go with it?
No, the mind is created to continue dreaming.
That’s what I do when life brings me sorrow. I tend my wounds with lovely dreams as I mourn the loss. Giving yourself permission to face reality in grief, I feel, is healing.
Dealing with this horrible spell check program is another story! It is crucial to read your text before publishing because words can be changed in sometimes hideous ways. For example, I was appalled when a simple reply I wrote read like a disgusting page from a porn novel because the spellcheck program added guessed words.
The guessed words part of spell check needs an off button. Better yet, go to the Browser settings>Languages and find the button to shut off spellcheck.
Good luck
Name Development
Ah, so it goes! Who are you in name presented to the world as a blogger, influencer, personality or business? Titles count.
Developing a name, as I see it, is a mix of your vibe vision and practicality. What feels good to you that the world out there will also be attracted to.
Based in my name development process:
- Begin with words that you feel connected to, like ocean, woods, canoe, cabin, nature. The words are starting points for brain storming, not necessarily to be used in a name. Use a thesaurus.
- List several to search online if the name is already being used or means something that does not express your vision. Add keywords like blog, website. book, podcast.
- Search the US Trademark register and your state business register
- Search domain name availability on a trusted domain host website. Add the, s, a and such in your searches.
- Sketch possible logos
- Rest the name for a few days or longer. Do Not Share it online, in an email or text.
- Once you are sure you like the name/title, know it is not in use already or too similar to a name in use, then buy the domain name adding the privacy feature.
- Set up your blog, your website unpublished.
- Adding-Buy the US trademark.
- Ducks in a row, go for it.
I highly stress to do thorough research to make sure your name is unique and not in use. And now that I’ve been sent into shock,
Buy the US Trademark!
Summer Photographs: Fields & Shade
Each week, a select photograph that depicts the season of Summer will be posted here on Mondays. The image can be any subject from an arranged still life to one simple scene that speaks Summer.
Here is a favorite from Summer 2024.
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| Route 17 Addison Vermont |
Fairness For Blogs?
Advocating searching in various forms, your name and blog name as well as buying the domain names for both has been posted on this blog for years. *
That has changed as now there are people using and/or plan to use Salty Pumpkin as their business name.
In other words, all the years You put into building your blog name means nothing unless maybe you can register it as a trademark. I state maybe because I don’t know US Trademark rules.
Is it fair for bloggers to not have legal protection for their blog name?
I believe it is not fair.
I want to see copyright laws keep up with the times by adding a rule that protects blogs from people who try to capitalize on that blog’s years of publishing.
If an active blog with a unique name has been publishing weekly with the same title for 5 years or more, has an active comment feature, and posts images, then that blog’s title should be protected by copyright.
I believe using a blog’s unique name is a form of impersonation.
*This post has been edited to make it shorter
Also, Internet search results for salty pumpkin are not the same as hours ago. Now the results show this blog on top (as it use to).
Bird Sighting: Carolina Wren
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| Carolina Wren February 2025 Vergennes, Vermont |
Would you look at that!
A first time sighting of a Carolina Wren is quite exciting. There were a few of them there scurrying around at the birdseed.
That is the best photo I have. When I set up the camera to hide my movements, they were nowhere to be seen. Birds.
Pondering the Quality of Life
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| Addison County Vermont |
The day after the recent snowfall, the sun is shining brightly on 3 or 4 inches of snow. The weather map has no snowflakes in the forecast until Saturday night. I and the hood of my vehicle are pleased as we warm to the glorious light of our planet's only Sun.
My bad knee is a little better. I'm keeping the cane handy. Having such difficulty walking makes me ponder the days ahead when age will be the swollen bad knee.
Aging in the upper years comes with worry for just about every little thing, what it means to the quality of life. It is there like dark clouds and a chill on a sunny day at the beach. Well, I say so what! There are a lot of wonderful quotes about not allowing negatives to spoil the day. Better to read them to uplift one's spirits than sit and worry about something like a shooting pain in my thumb as arthritis or did I bang it on the water faucet.
This subject feels like I've posted about it before, a same old kind of thing. What makes it feel new (er) is how badly the bad knee limits my ability to walk. Scary it is.
There are plenty of things I can do to make me feel happy, refreshed, pleased with how I spent my time. They are too numerous to list but here are a few.
🌲 Christmas ornaments
All that felt, fabric and bit of trim I've saved for years* can be put to good use in a plastic shoebox kept beside my yarn stash for a handy do something while I ponder the meaning of life.
💟 Greeting Cards
Glue, scissors, trims, paper and imagination are all that's needed to create simple and pleasing designs. Paper can be made from junk mail.
🎵 Music appreciation
Listen to music for a few hours for an in the recliner concert. Think about each instrument as it plays. Remember the old school days class for music?
In all that, I have stories to edit, paintings to finish, and the very pout producing task of not sitting in a chair daydreaming or staring into space for hours on end.
P.S.
I got Wordle in 2 today!
* I have fabric that is over 50 years old.
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