First Tweet & Fall Arrives

10 October 2009 // Filed under Family + Leaving Los Internets + Nerdery

So one of the things I enjoy about the Internet is keeping in touch.  The Internet is very good at the whole “wide and shallow” communication thing.  Services like Facebook and Twitter are great for getting a superficial view of what is going on the in lives of your friends and acquaintances, and they’re also very good for keeping your network of friends informed regarding your life goings ons.

Of course the danger of this kind of communication is that it spreads us too thinly.  Instead of taking the time and trouble to build deep and meaningful relationships we spend time maintaining many shallow relationships and crafting a low-risk and blemish-free Internet persona.

My initial temptation when thinking about this project was to simply give up Facebook entirely.  I’ve never been a big Facebook user anyway (mostly for fear of how much time I could easily spent there), so why not just drop the habit once and for all?  And although I once signed up for a Twitter account out of curiosity I’ve never tweeted in my life.  My problems with Twitter are many:

1. The 140 character limit. This is everything I hate about Internet communication.  It’s a codification of the quick, immediate and shallow.
2. The Web 2.0 hipster image. I’m a refugee from the green-screen Internet era.  Rounded corners, pastel colors and big buttons bug me.
3. One more form of communication to keep track of. I already have to deal with email, blogs, forum posts, lists, SMS messages, Facebook and RSS feeds.  I don’t need one more thing.

But I don’t want to throw the baby out with the bath water.  Facebook has allowed me to renew some old connections in my life.  And it is nice to know what some of my more geographically distant friends are up to.  And whether I like it or not, people are starting to use these services as an efficient way to keep friends and family in the loop.  After all, why send fifteen emails when you can send a single message (tweet, status update, whatever) and let “everybody” know what you’re up to?

So I’m going to try the following communication recipe:

1. A post or two a week on this site.
2. Posts tied to Facebook via Wordbook
3. Facebook albums tied to this blog via Fotobook (and as a nice bonus I post pics to Facebook using iPhoto)
4. Blog post notifications on Twitter via Twitter Tools

This way activity on this blog should be pretty easy to follow whether you’re using Facebook, Twitter or just an RSS reader.  And I only have to post once and with no silly character limit.

Oh and speaking of tweaks (get ready for super-awesome segue here…) we just picked up a new hen.  That’s the good news.  But unfortunately we did this because we lost one chicken do to an impacted crop.  The new bird is also an easter-egger and she seems to be getting along fine.  Right now we’re working on the rather challenging problem of getting this year’s birds (Sparkle and Squirrel) integrated with the existing birds (Cleo & Shirley).  This has been a lot more of a challenge than I imaged, since the older hens persist in trying to kill the new additions.

If you take a look at the Facebook gallery link on this post you’ll my clever solution to this problem.  I basically created a shelter in the back of the coop with opens big enough for the small birds, but too small for the older hens.  The allows the small birds the run of the coop, but gives them a safe place to retreat when needed.  I have one hanger feeder with layer feed on the in the larger area for the older hens and another with grower freed in the shelter for the smaller hens.  Separating the food was necessary so that the small birds could get enough food and so the the big birds didn’t forego their layer feed (which has extra calcium needed for egg production) for the much tastier grower feed.  The water is posited right in the outside of the shelter so birds can easily drink from inside and outside of the shelter.

In other news, we’re continuing work on our new shed.  Hopefully this will be ready before the snow flies, but the last couple weeks of rain, rain and more rain have slowed down our progress a bit.  This weekend I’m hoping to get the doors, shelves and ramp finished.  If we can get that stuff done we’ll just need to add shingles and paint and we’ll be there.  I’ve included a few pics of the shed in progress in the gallery I just added to Facebook.

We also ended up with a bumper crop of really tasty carrots this year.  We grew them in a half whiskey barrel on the back deck.  It worked out really well and was a fairly decorative addition to the back yard.  This system will definitely stay in the garden plan for next year.

Anyway, that’s more than enough for now.  I have more interesting news, but I need to run and pick up Duncan.  He’s at Arctic Gymnastics for a friend’s birthday party, and things are just about to wrap up.

2009-10-10  ::  Geoffrey Wright