My first blog award -- awww, thanks!

I was very pleased and flattered to receive my first blog award today, from the wonderful Chris over at Gully Grove. The Liebster Blog award is given to little blogs like mine with less than 300 followers, to promote the lesser known blogs and also to provide links to others we may not have otherwise found.....

The idea is to link back to the persons blog you received the award from (I am sure there is a better way to write that grammatically!) and then nominate 3 blogs of your choice to recieve the award.

So thank you Chris x If you haven't checked out her blog at Gully Grove yet, have a peek. Hers was one of the first blogs I came across when I started, and she has inspired me, made me laugh, and I have even cried at times! She is an amazingly strong and resourceful woman.


The 3 blogs I would like to nominate for the Liebster Award are:-

Eat at Dixiebelles - a wonderful woman and mother with a social conscience who really strives to make a genuine difference in this world of ours. She cooks, she grows, she even permablitzes! Is there anything this woman can't do??!! I think not! And yet she is down to earth and so honest in her blogging.

Loopity Lou - Anne is a fabulous woman who can whip up amazing creations with nothing more than a pair of knitting needles and a piece of yarn! Her creations are so lovely, elegant but earthy at the same time. The kind of clothing you would ooh and ahh over if you saw it in a store (while trying to not stroke it!)  And shes a mountains woman- yay!

Funky Frontyard Farmers is my surprise choice- surprise only because I just found their blog yesterday!! Jo and Joe are also in the mountains here, and have a fantastic blog full of great reading. They are working very hard on their own garden but also spreading the word in the community, and not just talking-the-talk, they are walking-the-walk (!) and have started a local 'Crop and Swap' group which sounds like a mighty fine idea, and on that basis they definitely deserve a Liebster Award!!

So thats my 3 choices, if you were nominated, please pass the Liebster along by linking back here and nominating your own top 3 blogs (with under 300 followers).

I could have picked more if I was allowed! I would certainly have mentioned the chook woman herself - Jacqui at Life in the Dome but Chris had already nominated her, and I wouldn't want her to struggle and juggle 2 awards :-)


Hope you enjoy reading some new blogs  :-)

Lost my mojo...

LOST - One Blogging Mojo. Energy to get stuff done.

LAST SEEN - Looking very flat and tired, wandering aimlessly. Doing half jobs.

If anyone knows how I can find my mojo, or how to tempt it back I would be most appreciative of some advice.

REWARD? Well maybe I can finally write again (if I manage to get anything done worth writing about). Maybe even stick a few nice pics in there too.

Happy Birthday Mountain Wildlife!

It has snuck up on me! My Mountain Wildlife blog was officially 1 year old today :)

I can hardly believe it's true - this past year has flown since I made my very first entry HERE. I did remember sometime last month that this anniversary was coming up - and of course I planned to do something special.... but .... well, it kind of slipped away and now it's here and I have nothing special for you!   :-o

I am pleased that I have managed to keep it going though, as blogging this time last year seemed like a very mysterious kind of process, and I wasn't sure if anyone would even be interested in reading my ramblings! But here we are, and I have certainly had some readers.....

I have a stat-counter at the bottom of my blog which I can log into for lots of nerdy info- nothing personal of course but they do tell me for instance which countries my visitors have logged in from, and how many new and return visitors I have had.

At the time of writing- I have had 3,935 visitors in 12 months which truly amazes me! Over half of my visitors are 'return' visitors, which I guess means you have liked what you've seen and want to come again, and over half of those return visitors have been here more than 10 times.

And you have visited from Australia, UK, (not so surprising as my family are there) but also from Portugal, New Zealand, all over USA, Canada, Thailand and the most surprising - a handful of visitors from South Africa including Sudan! WHO ARE YOU?? !!! Pardon my ignorance, but I wasn't even aware there were many computers in the Sudan!

It is really interesting to know these stats, but I would truly love if more visitors would leave a comment when they visit my blog.
I do have 18 'followers' at the moment, (only 2 of whom I have met in real life!) who are more regular readers and some of whom do comment. I really appreciate your comments and input, it makes blogging a little less 'one-sided' as fellow bloggers will know!

I've found some great blogs through the year too, I really enjoy reading others efforts and experiences of gardening, chooky exploits, sewing, baking, thrift shopping, building, green living and generally trying to make their own part of the world a better place.

So here's to the first year, and apolgies for the lack of party-ness! Maybe I'll be more organised for the 2nd birthday..... :-)