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Mother Fox

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I woke up early this morning about 6:00 am and couldn’t fall back to sleep. When opening the blinds for breakfast, I noticed a mother fox standing on our deck railing and it looked over at me at the window. So I grabbed my iPhone and went into my bedroom for a photo more directly opposite the fox several feet away. When I very slowly and quietly peeked through the side of the window blinds to take the picture, she immediately noticed and turned her head to look straight at me.

Then I noticed a little baby fox (about a foot long) scampering around the grass below. So she must have been standing guard for their morning playtime, and she was going to make sure nobody threatened them. I wasn’t able to capture its photo since I didn’t have a good angle, and it kept going in and out the opening on the side of the deck near that corner which they have been using as their “entrance”. The other morning we had seen the mother trotting across our deck with something like a mouse, rat, or vole in its mouth and it disappeared down under the deck. Maybe that might have been breakfast for the family that day. I imagine we will see more activity until they get old enough to leave.

Recently, we’ve noticed there was a fox living under our deck, but didn’t know there were babies. During the night sometimes, we have heard fox “noises” from under the deck next to the wall in our bedroom, and knew something was going on there. We have had a fox den there in the past, including a small family of with 3-4 little ones. Apparently, the babies must have been born while away during our recent Rhine cruise and Germany trip since the little foxes are not out and about, at least close to their den.

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Mom’s 95th Birthday

Today was my father’s birthday. John (Corky) Warren would have been 95 today, but he died 2 years ago in August 2013. I was very lucky to have such wonderful parents who provided love and support for me and my two brothers and two sisters all our lives. Although he is now gone, I miss him and think of him frequently, especially today.

It’s a shame that my Mom doesn’t even realize that he’s been away now for about 3 years since he was with her. However, it’s actually a blessing that she doesn’t know he died since Alzheimer’s has taken her memory away (even after being married almost 70 years ago). But she still knows that she loves her children and tells us every time we visit with her.

Recently my Mom celebrated her 95th birthday! My sister, brother, and brother-in-law were able to be there for Mother’s Day and her birthday. Unfortunately, I was away at that time for a Viking River Cruise on the Rhine in Germany.

I was sorry that I couldn’t be with her on this special day, but with Alzheimer’s, she’s not really aware of dates anyway. However, they shared these photos, including chocolate candy, birthday cake and card, hugs and kisses, smiles and laughter. She never thought that she would live this long. I love you, Mom!

 

1,000 Likes
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1,000 Likes

Great news! I have reached another significant milestone. WordPress says that today I now have 1,000 Likes on my web site. Thanks for letting me know what you like. I’m glad that you’re enjoying the music, photos, and travel posts. It always helps to see that my blog is on track with its readers.

Currently, I have 1,034 Likes from 6,111 Views (17% Liked) by 3,455 Visitors (1.7 views/visit). I have created 547 Posts and 80 Pages, and received 294 Comments. There are 137 WordPress followers, 167 Email subscriptions, 22 following on Twitter, and 8 on Facebook. The most views per day was 74 on November 7, 2014.

I have really enjoyed my experience over the past 9 months since I started my blog on September 17, 2014. I reached 200 Likes on Nov 3 (first 2 months during Blogging 101), then 500 by Dec 15 (just 1 month during both Blogging 201, Photo 101, and Christmas music), and now 1000 (6 months later). It’s wonderful to meet so many interesting people whose blogs I get to read every day.

I have been preparing a series of posts which feature my recent Viking River Cruise on the Rhine and extended trip through Germany. I took almost 4,000 photos during our three weeks visiting so many interesting destinations. It has taken quite a while reviewing and organizing my photos, including selecting highlights for sharing in my blog. I am creating a photo web site as a better way to store and share my photos, and I will integrate that with my WordPress blog. I expect to begin daily posts starting in the next several days.

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Unlock Your Mind

This is the Day 1 post for Writing 101 – Unlock Your Mind. The objective is to just write for 20 minutes without thinking about it – just stream of consciousness. So here goes.

We’re taking a little getaway trip for 3 nights at a bed & breakfast at a farm in the country in southeast Texas. We are going to meet friends who were neighbors for many years when we used to live in the Dallas area before moving to Austin. It’s a quaint 2-bedroom log cabin with front porch with swing. Of course, we get breakfast each morning, but we also signed up for dinner the first night after we arrive.

It’s located near the Big Thicket National Preserve which we plan to visit, do some hiking, rent some kayaks or canoes, etc. Also we will probably golf at a nearby course one day. It will be interesting to just explore a new area, and spend some time with our friends.

On the way, we will get a chance to see all the wild flowers that appear in Texas in the spring, such as Bluebonnets, Indian Paintbrush, Mexican Hat, etc. we will passing through Brenham where Blue Bell ice cream is made so maybe we can stop there. We’ve taken the tour before, but maybe just stopping for a cone might be good.

Well that’s about the end of my 20 minutes. I will get some nice photos for my blog. It will be fun!

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500 Posts

500 Posts

I passed another milestone now that I have created over 500 posts (and 76 pages) for my blog in just over 6 months since I started it during the Blogging 101 course. The majority so far have been about Music (422), followed by Photos (35) and Blog (35), then Travel (16), and finally Recipes (2).

My blog has about 3,000 visitors with over 5,100 views, almost 900 likes, and over 250 comments. There are 126 WordPress followers, 153 email subscribers, 19 on Twitter, and 8 for Facebook.

Thanks for visiting, reading, listening, and following.

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Playlists Restored

I discovered that my Spotify playlists had been reset from public to private when I upgraded my Spotify desktop app. I was not aware that this happened right away so I apologize for anyone that had trouble trying to listen to any of my playlists recently. Although the playlists are preserved across any upgrade, I had to manually change each one back to public so that they appear again in my music posts. This made me realize that I’m currently entrusting quite a bit of work without any effective backup which I need to address.

I decided that I need to establish a process which allows me to manage my playlists more effectively (and safely) so I’m going to create my own app where I can export and import my own Spotify playlists easily, manage them more easily, and synchronize them with my blog posts. At a minimum, this will enable me to ensure that I have a backup of all my Spotify playlists, which I could restore if necessary. Also, I could use it to reset the public status of all my playlists after a Spotify upgrade. I could also use it to cross-reference my Spotify playlists with WordPress posts. I might be able to use it to help manage YouTube playlists as well. It might be helpful to provide some assistance for generating playlist music posts, as well as other useful WordPress blog management tasks for posts, categories, tags, follows, comments, media, stats, etc.

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5,000 Views

I passed another milestone with over 5,000 views. My blog has grown quite a bit since it was started only 6 months ago on September 17, 2014 during the Blogging 101 course.

I have created 488 posts and 76 pages with 2,901 visitors, 869 likes, and 245 comments. There are 124 WordPress followers, 151 email subscribers, 19 on Twitter, and 8 for Facebook.

Thanks for visiting, reading, listening, and following my blog.

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Blog Goal Achievements – Feb 2015

Here’s a summary of milestone achievements for the Blog Goals that I established for February 2015 when I participated in Blogging 201 and Writing 201: Poetry.

1. Expand Readers and Traffic 

I have reached my target goals to expand readers and traffic with views, posts, likes, and comments. I had not set any goals for site visitors or email subscribers, but those have increased. Although improving, I came up short with followers on Wordpress Reader, as well as Twitter and Facebook social networks.

For each Target, here are the Goals with the Current statistics and amount Over (on Feb 28), as well as the starting Base count (on Feb 2), along with Growth % for the Increase (Current – Base) over the past month.

Target Goal Current Over Base Increase Growth %
Views 4,500 4,727 +227 3,955 +772 20
Posts 450 458 +8 383 +75 20
Likes 800 836 +36 715 +121 17
Comments 250 252 +2 216 +36 17
Visitors 2,669 +520 24
Subscribers 148 121 +27 22
Followers 150 120 -30 104 +16 15
Twitter 25 20 -5 10 +10 100
Facebook 15 8 -7 7 +1 14

Many music artists have favorited and/or retweeted my posts on Twitter during February. This includes  several replies with thanks and blog compliments, and those with an asterisk (*) are even following me: Michele McLaughlin*, Philip Wesley*, Fiona Joy*, Christine Brown*, Tim Glemser*, Doug Hammer*, Brad Jacobsen*, Vin Downes*, Ed Harris*, Joseph Akins, and Michael Logozar, as well as Austin Town Hall*, Texas Music Office*, and SXSWfm.

2. Extend Content

Also, I have successfully extended my blog’s content. Besides my Twitter activity and interactions, I have increased range and diversity beyond music with my poems from the Writing 201: Poetry workshop. I will continue to create additional posts with travel, photo, writing, and other blog topics that will interest more readers and realize the focus described on my About page.

Poetry

For Writing, I took the plunge and participated in the Writing 201: Poetry course so I could learn more about poetry. Although I considered this to be quite a stretch for me, the challenge interested me so I registered to give it a try. Actually, I was quite surprised that I composed six poems (Water, Journey, Trust, Animal, Fog, Hero) by the end of the two weeks; however, I still have four more to finish over the next several days (Fingers, Drawer, Landscape, and Future) since I got a little behind.

Photos

Regarding Photos, although I didn’t start participation in weekly photo challenges yet, I have been following them and intend to join them during March. I considered registering for Photography 101 again since I enjoyed it so much the first time, especially with all the community interaction. However I decided that I will involved in photo challenges instead, while also trying to follow the assignments as well.

3. Enhance Brand

Finally, I have enhanced my brand with the initial focus on site’s sidebar and menus. I reviewed my site for possible improvements and focused on overhauling my sidebar, where I removed many of the widgets that had been incrementally added over the past several months. Based on constructive reader feedback during my Blogging 201 refresher, I tried to simplify it as much as possible, and comments have been favorable about the site being much cleaner now.

I’m currently examining my site organization and menu structure for further refinements, where some updates are needed, redundancies eliminated, and general simplification. Reviewing blog statistics, as well as likes and comments, has helped with this analysis too. I still need to determine whether another blog title, tagline, and theme would be appropriate.

I have started efforts to provide renewed focus for older content, such as music and photos.

Music

With music, I created a series of Music Roundups by genre (Country, Americana, Pop, Folk, Indie, Alternative, Piano, etc.) with links to earlier music posts grouped by month since September when I started the blog.

Also, more recently I have just started creating Playlist posts for existing music artists on my web site such as George Strait and Tim McGraw, and will continue that during March. I’m already doing that for all new music posts with recent ones like Brandy Clark, The Band Perry, Rod Picott, Slaid Cleaves, Meiko, Stars, Lenka, Ruby the RabbitFoot, The Head and the Heart, The Aikiu, Family of the Year, Michele McLaughlin, Philip Wesley, Ed Harris, and Conspirare.

Over the next several months, I will be including more posts for Travel, Photos, Writing, and Recipes topics, as well as Music.

Thank you for helping me reach my goals.

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Glen Campbell: Love, Memory, and Music

Originally I published this post over Valentine’s Day weekend. At that time there were several thoughts I wanted to share about love, memory, and music as I was thinking about my Mom who has Alzheimer’s. With Glen Campbell receiving the Grammy award for his last song I’m Not Gonna Miss You, from the documentary I’ll Be Me filmed during his Goodbye Tour, made me also think about his similar struggle with Alzheimers over the past four years.

However, I think it became much too long when these were combined in the same post, after all these ideas evolved during writing. So I have now split it into two separate posts, which they should have been initially. Recently, I also created another related music on The Band Perry which features Glen Campbell’s song Gentle On My Mind.

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Blog Statistics – Feb 2015

Our first assignment for Blogging 201 (Feb 2015) was to set three goals for our blog. First, I thought it would be helpful to understand my current status and site statistics for the past 5 months since I started this blog. It seemed like that might help me to determine realistic targets that I might be able to achieve this month.

See my post Blog Goals – Feb 2015 which describes the goals I established in Blogging 201 (Feb 2015) to accomplish by the end of this month. Originally, I included these statistics there, but decided to extract it into this separate post since it really was just background details that everyone might not be interested in.

Current Status

Currently, I have created 383 posts, for an average 2.5 posts per day. They have had 3,955 total views by 2,149 unique visitors to my site, for an average of 26 views per day with 72 being the most in a single day. There are 104 WordPress followers reading my blog updates, as well as 120 Email subscriptions, 10 Twitter followers, and 7 Facebook followers. I have received 216 comments from readers, and there have been more than 715 likes on my posts.

Monthly Statistics

Here’s a summary of monthly site statistics since I started my blog that some might find interesting.

Month Views Views/Day Visitors Visitors/Day Likes Comments Posts
Sep 238 8 92 3 44 23 19
Oct 705 23 251 8 147 58 95
Nov 907 30 468 16 212 74 50
Dec 1292 42 781 25 236 36 151
Jan 782 25 535 17 76 15 66
AVG 785 26 425 14 143 41 76