I am not the farm...

Today has been a hard day in a whole lot of ways and I didn't get much sleep last night, so I'm a little cranky. If you don't want to listen to me grousing, stop reading right now.

Okay, so here it is. I write a lot about life on the farm. I used to send out an email to interested people a few years ago (TN Tattlers), but quit because I got tired of explaining that I was writing about what time I WAS active, but that didn't mean I was active 24/7, and yes, I still had/have chronic pain and fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome. I just didn't see writing, "Oh, I was on the couch for a couple of hours today" as being interesting reading.

So I gave up with the TN Tattlers. But I like to write, so now I do it on a more public and a little less personal forum of the farm blog. It gets quite a few visitors, enough so that the website has a page rank of 3. That probably doesn't mean anything to most people reading this, but short explanation is that Google ranks all pages from 0 - 10, and there are a lot more ranked zero than about anything else. 3 is a solid ranking.

Anyway, the point is that I write a lot about the farm and a lot of people read it. Most I never hear from or know who they are. Many comment and we have an enjoyable dialog. Others I hear from I could do without, those being the ones who love to tell me what I'm doing wrong.

And then there are those who are so interested in what I write they want to come visit and see the farm. Many don't even make a pretense of saying they want to come see me, they just "want to see the farm and the animals I write about."

Well, we don't have a petting zoo. We're not open to the public. And for the most part, I don't do visitors. Seriously, when I say I'm turning into a hermit, I am NOT kidding. Especially right now when I am concentrating on starting/growing a business, while still doing the farm work and a little bit of house work, because the guys are also working full time and somebody's got to do it!

So at the moment we do most family visits by meeting family elsewhere, like taking Dad on a mini vacation, and meeting Maria and family and staying overnight at a cabin in eastern WV. Or meeting the Canadian crew this fall in the Pigeon Forge area.

The point to all this rambling is why would I want people I don't even know to come visit when these days I rarely even have immediate family visit the farm? It's just too difficult to take time off to clean and get ready for company, and still get other work done. It's more fun, easier, and less stressful to meet people elsewhere.

And seriously, "I am not the farm"... people can see me without seeing the farm. If people have to see the farm to see me, they're not really interested in seeing me, they want to see the farm. I just happen to be the keeper of the farm animals. And frankly, I'm a little tired of people feigning an interest in me so they can see the farm.

So there it is. I repeat, I am not the farm. If someone really wants to see me, we can meet somewhere besides the farm. Go out to dinner perhaps. Or here's an idea... what about THEIR house?

Hey, I warned you I was cranky!