Went outside about two of clock yesterday and could hear the distinctive call of a kite so I walked out from under the big oak where I could get a view of the sky and maybe see the kite. It was there chasing after one of our resident red shouldered hawks. They circled around lazily, the hawk didn’t seem concerned but the kite was definitely following behind calling out and then they finally flew off out of sight. Didn’t have my phone with me but probably wouldn’t have been able to get a picture anyway. I imagine the kite was protecting a nest.
I solved the question of what to do next by getting out the water color pencils that came with a larger art materials set, a birthday gift from my sister in law, and the scribble sticks (water soluble pigments) that my friend Delores sent me that she wasn’t using. I just dabbled with them to see what they did at first and then did two little drawings. This one with the pencils
and this one with the scribble sticks.
Not sure what I’m going to do with them but a friend ordered some blank watercolor note cards that she did little paintings on so I think I’ll order some and play with the pencils and sticks before I think about whether or not I want to try a serious painting with them.
We’re getting a little rain right now and the dog is her usual neurotic mess. I told her to calm down, it was just a little rain, no lightning, no thunder. No sooner were the words out of my mouth than thunder rolled through. Thanks, powers that be.
I had quite a surprise today. I average about 250 - 300 page views per post some get more than that, some less. The last 6 posts bar the very last one averaged 273. When I checked my blog dashboard after I got home from SHARE this afternoon the last post had 695 (and counting) page views! The only thing I can figure is the ‘weird aging’ in the title somehow aligned with a search topic cause I’m pretty sure ’art stuff’ and ‘flowers’ are fairly benign. Most by far were referrals from google but there were several hundred from domains I have no idea what they are. Almost 700 page views is a lot but it doesn’t come close to the number I got when I published my post of “S is for…sex” when I was going the alphabet posts. Anyway, that one got me flagged as porn for awhile because the illustrating picture is a very graphic representation (in my defense it’s a picture of a Hindu sculpture on a temple and so qualifies as art imo) and I got thousands of hits mostly from the middle east and eastern Europe.
I have noticed recently that when I go over to feed the kitties the dishes are all knocked over, like are you guys having a party or what? Lovey and Twin,
Handsome Boy.
Robin sent me a short video yesterday. She went out and startled three little juvenile raccoons polishing off the rest of the cat food that hadn’t got eaten. She shot a video of them escaping over the fence into the neighbor’s yard.
Latest count of views for the last post…759. I wish I knew what caused this.
Codex: I think there's some critter knocking things over. Blogger used to have a great feature where one could see the search terms.
ReplyDeleteThe watercolor pencils won't be lightfast but they are a lot of fun. Just use a couple on top of each other, add water and you get interesting effects. Sprinkling salt is another option.
Definitely critters. Raccoon critters. Blogger used to have a lot of good features which they don't have anymore, like being able to edit on the blog instead of having to go to layout now.
DeleteI love raccoons, with a window between us. So clever and adorable. I also love those stats. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if all posts got that kind of attention. I had a few weeks when my posts were getting more than a thousand hits a day. They were all apparently from Russia. I’m excited about the water color pencils.
ReplyDeleteSeems to have been temporary but I did get twice what I usually do on this one. The pencils are fairly new but I've had the scribble sticks for awhile but never bothered to try them out. I'm glad I finally did.
DeleteWe have a raccoon that visits regularly and uses a certain spot on the fence as his/her personal latrine. At least it’s all in one place!
ReplyDeleteYikes! I don't think I'd care for that.
DeleteIt's AI searches, I noticed that with the last couple of posts and asked one of my former IT colleagues to check the sources. Various AI generated search sites looking for food for their storage of human ideas, he thinks.
ReplyDeleteRacoons have gone wild here - escaped several years ago from a zoo - but not yet in the suburbs, they are in the forests and parks, emptying the bins.
We have very (night) active martens at the moment. They should be in the forests but find it more entertaining in gardens and car ports, known to chew engine cables.
I've look way back at really early posts of mine from the time when I started to blog and these posts now show high triple digit views, something I cannot imagine is due to a sudden interest from online viewers in short posts about a middle aged woman in Germany coping with a life changing diagnosis.
DeleteHumans have destroyed so much habitat that some creatures are learning to live in human environments. Big cities here have resident coyotes and hawks.
DeleteAI is a bad idea. It's going to be the end of us. We're already lazy and fat and have lost how to survive without all our machines and gizmos, now we're going to get stupid, not having to even think. We'll become like that Star Trek episode where all the adults were like children where their lives were controlled by and provided for by the big brain they had created.
Raccoons are such interesting critters. I haven't checked the hits on my blog posts in forever because I only have about 6 regular commenters and of course they're not REAL posts anyway - just a diary of sorts. (I just looked & I usually get a little over 100 but the last one is at 683 so something is definitely going on! Sabine is probably right.)
ReplyDeleteWe must be boring compared to John Kurman below who got 3,000.
DeleteI NEVER check my stats. It is what it is. They are what they are? Whatever.
ReplyDeleteYep. Looks like the raccoons are having a party at the cat bowls. Rowdy little beasts.
I love the way those colors look. Very nice!
So glad your kites are back. That is cheering news.
I keep my dashboard open in another window for the new post button and the reading list and the numbers are right there, number of comments, number of views.
DeleteI wouldn't say the kites are back, have only seen two and they'll be leaving soon. I'm having more fun with the watercolor pencils and scribble sticks than I thought I would.
I think Sabine's comment explains it. Kinda creepy, tho.
ReplyDeleteYour art is so lovely.
Pretty soon AI will steal everything and people will stop thinking. Why should I when I can just get AI to so it.
DeleteI got a 3000 hit from Reddit for my post on the elephant's prehensile penis (with video). I think you should make postcards with the water color pencils. "Greetings From Texas". Or "I'd rather be driving my other car"
ReplyDeleteSorry, 882,193 hits
DeleteCome on! You can't be THAT interesting. I suppose it can't figure out your little bronzes so it keeps coming back.
DeleteI absolutely love raccoons, despite their ability to wreak havoc. Long ago I befriended a female who had babies, and then brought them to my second floor apartment balcony to show them off. She had to bring them one at a time, climbing a tree growing right next to the balcony. It's one of my favorite memories.
ReplyDeleteHow cool was that! Another blog I read has raccoon moms bringing their babies to her porch for treats, water, to play and snooze. She posts pictures all the time.
DeleteAs Codex mentioned, it used to be possible to see the Google search terms that brought people to our blogs. I haven't tried it in a while so I don't know if that's still true. As I recall, it's somewhere in the traffic sources. I can't quite remember. It may well be something like Sabine said -- AI doing its thing.
ReplyDeleteNope. I looked when I got all those hits. The vast majority were from Google search but not specific terms.
DeleteDiscontinued a decade ago.
Delete