Peace Tree Farm

One year on

The gates of Peace Tree Farm creaked open for the first time precisely one year ago today. In that time, I’ve posted 145 entries (including this one). The site has been visited some 5759 times. That’s enough traffic to make this place a Slithering Reptile in The Truth Laid Bear Ecosystem.

Thank you, kind readers, for your attention and interest!

I didn’t form the intention to concentrate on any particular subject matter when I started posting. I’m sure I expected to talk quite a bit about the horror show that is the Bush malAdministration, but I also thought I’d more often find the time and the inclination to write about baseball, music, science, travel, and who knows what else. Maybe next year…

I’m a bit disappointed that my postings haven’t drawn more comments than the paltry 193 that have accumulated (sadly, that total includes more than a few of my own comments on the postings). Not that I thought I’d become the next Atrios or Kos or CalPundit, but it would have been interesting to be just a tad more popular. Oh well…

No posting in Peace Tree Farm’s first year drew more than the nine comments drawn by Declaration day follies, my June 23 discussion comparing the responses to protesters at rallies for Howard Dean and Dubya. In reviewing the year’s postings, I see that I really should have tried to do more on non-political topics, as the next-highest number of comments came in reaction to RT was here, the paean to Richard Thompson and other singer-songwriters that I posted on May 21.

Visitors arrived at Peace Tree Farm for many reasons and in many ways. Quite a few arrived here after reading my own comments to postings on other blogs, and others got here through blogs that have put me on their blogrolls—thanks to all of you! Then there are the visitors who got here via Google or MSN or other search engines. It’s no surprise that the greatest number of such visitors were looking for tree farms ... no such luck here, folks. Strangely, though, I continue to receive many visitors whose search strings contain some variation on “dylan victorias secret commercial”, drawn by It’s not the end of the world..., my March 3 posting about that bizarre ad. In the last few months, a significant number of visits have been based on searches for “cheryl tiegs”. That would be rather mystifying if you weren’t aware that Cheryl and I share the same birthdate (she’s a few years older). On the other hand, I don’t recall seeing many visits from people seeking Catherine Zeta-Jones or Heather Locklear (or Phil Rizzuto, for that matter).

And the future? Well, as you’ve already seen, we received a new page design for the site’s birthday. It’s quite likely that in the near future this blog will move to a slightly different URL, trading our .com for a .org address. Yes, commercial interests are desirous of my current URL, and I am rather kindly disposed toward letting them claim it. If it happens, it will be a friendly takeover, no doubt with reciprocal links for those arriving at X when they actually want Y.

In terms of subject matter, it will continue to be whatever strikes me as worthy of (semi-)public mention and note. Whether that means continuing political dissent and commentary to the near-exclusion of most other topics remains to be seen. Alas, as long as the Bushies remain in their ill-gotten place I suspect that I’ll still be writing about their myriad outrages.

For now, though, I’ll just celebrate the full year I’ve put into this effort, and look forward to whatever I might find comment-worthy in the next.

Posted by N in Seattle on 01/02 at 06:37 PM