Product give-away standards--help!

To start at the end...

There's actually more to this story, but I'm saving some back until I get responses to this piece. So tell me what you think.

Background (Personal Position Statement)

Though I’m sure some of you will choke when you read this (either in laughter or astonishment), I feel I’ve acquired a relatively good feel for blogging etiquette over the year and a half since I started blogging seriously. But the whole world that blogging verges on remains closed to me. I don’t Twitter, and when someone recently invited me to join LinkedIn, I had to ask Alice Anistasia (Bay Area Tendrils) what that was (after I’d joined, no less.)

A belated thanks, Fork 'n' Monkey (together with an extended digression on national anthems)

Something amazing happened last May. I know; that’s two seasons back, ancient history by gardening standards, an earlier era in the blogging world. But that’s when it happened: that’s when the Manic won the one of the awards in the second annual Fork ‘n’ Monkey Awards. Attention must be paid, however belatedly, and thanks rendered, both to the Garden Monkey and James A-S for sponsoring the second F ‘n’ M awards, and to everyone who voted for the Manic as best North American blog. Being nominated is an honor; winning still has me blinking in disbelief. Wow.

(And then I promptly shut down operations; y’all must have been rethinking those votes!)

Non-compost-mentis

So here’s the question for the day, people: can I turn a compost tumbler that’s a great fit for someone who’s almost two feet taller than I am? Let me explain.

Just yesterday afternoon I closed a deal with Chris of Backyard Gardening Blog to review what he modestly calls the World's Greatest Organic Compost Tumbler. Now, my first reaction to most offers is to say no, absolutely not, but, well, Chris made me an offer I couldn’t refuse: he’d give me a tumbler in exchange for an honest review, a promise not to sue him if it turns out that I can’t rotate the thing, and my next child. This decision required careful consideration, but after about three seconds I went with the tumbler. (Please don’t tell him I’m 55 and past all that childbearing business.)

Contest on the way--try it if you dare

  

Having spent the morning in a mind-numbing fury while trying to print two pages of an IRS document necessary to report the income (ha-ha) from my business (hee-hee) over the past year, I have probably burnt out my two remaining brain cells, as well as ensuring that I will return to earth as a nematode, and probably not the beneficial sort. A quiet acceptance of the world's vagaries was not demonstrated by moi.

On the other hand, THE COMPOSTING ARTICLE IS UP, all hundred and fifty pages of it, looking quite well-behaved and tidy for something so sprawling, even voracious. Amazing, how Eric has reduced the monster that dominated my life for months to a meek little sidebar. (The mysteries of translating a Word document into a website are beyond me; I use “translate” here in its old theological meaning of “to transport to heaven without natural death.”)

Eric by the way is Eric Vinge, of Planet Natural who asked me to write an article on compost. So I did. (If I'd had any idea.... Then again, if he'd had any idea....)  Anyway, now it's got a name ("Compost: In the Bin, the Barden, and the Environment") and a home site (The Composter Connection) and one of those nifty pictures done by Eric's artist, whose name I cannot find, but I promise that when I do, I'll put it up.

This article has got everything, and if you think it doesn't, I dare you to prove it. Come on, put 'em up; let's see your footwork. All that talk don't mean nothin'. Meet me in the alley, and we'll see what you're really made of. Just be sure to bring whatever it is you think you know about composting.

They found me!

______________________________________________________

I’m not sure who "they" are, but they’ve definitely found me.

Recently, I’ll go to my TypePad page in the morning and see that I’ve got a bunch of new comments, which are meat and drink--nay, the very nectar of life--to most bloggers. But when I look at the comments themselves they’re mostly nonsense, except that each contains the url for a site having nothing to do, trust me, with gardening.

Thanks to James, the White Knight of the Black Pitt--

You could knock me down with a feather.

Amongst the various honors done me in my short blogging career, perhaps none ranks with this, that James Alexander-Sinclair put me on a short list of gardening blogs that might just possibly be worth reading. Publicly.

In his Gardener’s Magazine wrap-up article for 2008, “Of Cabbages and Kings,” James (Blogging at Blackpitts Garden) tips his hat to Nigel Colborn’s Silvertreedaze, Emma Townshend’s Baklava Shed Coalition (the name alone recommends it), Veg Plotting, and—the lowly Manic. This is illustrious company,.

Flags at half-mast, please--the Garden Monkey retires

Tear your hair and shriek, ladies; men, howl, and break your computer keyboards o’er your knees, for you won’t need them anymore: the Garden Monkey has retired from blogging. The announcement went up yesterday, and the garden blogging world is reeling.

I have not been reticent about my love of the Monkey, whose early and public support meant much to me, so early in my blogging career, and whose friendship has meant more in the months since. Truly, I go about town bragging that the Manic is one of the Monkey’s five “desert island blogs.” Now who else has a category like that?

Exercising every ounce of self-control I’ve got, I’ll refrain from pleading for a respite, and instead wish the wise and venerable Monkey a long and well-deserved rest.

If I had three Monkey-related wishes, though, they’d be these: to have the Monkey grace this site with a guest blog; to see, eventually, the Return of the Monkey to blogging; and to know, if not the Monkey’s identity, at least his/her gender, because writing about him/her with the awkward him/her pronouns popping up all over the place is a royal pain and a half.

Hats off to the Monkey!

Eating Crow

Dagnabit, I was wrong about so many things in my last post, I feel compelled to go public. Trust me, I wouldn't do it if I didn't feel morally compelled. (Rumors that I'm worried about being sued are entirely false.)

The post was, of course, about the tree cut in Montana to adorn the lawn before the Capital.

capitolchristmastree2008.org, photogallery

And the Arte y Pico awards go to--

Long, long ago, in an earlier and simpler time (last July, actually), the esteemed Victoria of Victoria's Backyard did me the extraordinary and unexpected honor of bestowing upon me the coveted Arte y Pico award. You wouldn’t know it from the way I responded (which can best be described as not responding at all), but I really was quite blown away. Still am.

This is one of those awards that one shares, and I am such a wordoholic that the injunction to select blogs “regardless of the language” stopped me cold. How could I ignore language? Then there was that bit about choosing bloggers who had made a “contribution to the blogging community."  At that point I’d only been blogging seriously for a few months. I’d posted a few times a month since November, 2007, but didn’t start posting seriously until May of this year, much less reading other blogs, so I had no idea what the "blogging community" was, much less who'd made a contribution to it.

Since then I’ve spent countless hours reading and enjoying others’ blogs, and having survived the Great Transatlantic Sock Wars (which left fields both here and abroad littered with virtual dead), I feel that I know something of the “blogging community” and all the happiness it can bestow on its members. (Not to mention the sadness--No, let us not speak of that. Clearly you wish to speak of it--to revisit the sorrow that afflicted so many who witnessed the cruelty visited upon me in that terrible time, but no--no, we shall not speak of it. We are above such pettiness.)

Where was I? Oh, yes.

I should make it clear that I have not (nor shall I ever) relinquish my loyalty to the Word. However, I am willing to concede, albeit reluctantly, that perhaps there are other qualities which may add to a blog’s value and, well, beauty.

THEREFORE, after extended contemplation, long nights of gnawing fingernails and pacing floors, much breast-beating, and a modicum of self-flagellation, I am ready to announce my decisions to the breathe-baited world. But first, a word from our sponsor, the master of award ceremonies, who will present the award rules:

THE RULES:
1. Choose 5 blogs you consider deserving of this award for their creativity, design, interesting material, and contribution to the blogging community, regardless of the language.

2. Each award should have the name of the author and a link to his/her blog to be visited by everyone.

3. Each award winner should show the award and put the name and link to the blog that presented him/her with the award.

4. The award winner and the one who has given the award should show the Arte y Pico blog so everyone will know the origin of this award. Translated, it means "the peak of art."

5. Show these rules.

And now, drumroll, please—WAIT!

It’s only fair to warn you that some of what follows is, if not X-rated, at least W-rated. So no complaints, please. You’ve been warned.

Now, one more time? Drumroll, please--

MY FIVE
Robert’s Roost
Far be it from me to suggest that other back-yard gardeners like me are just hobby-gardeners, but it’s nice to see what goes on on a “real” farm, especially one as interesting and friendly as this. I’m not sure Alan’s got the time or inclination to futz about bestowing awards when he’s trying to figure out how to feed his animals through the winter, but he deserves this even if he doesn't want it.

Mr. Subjunctive
Who knows more about what he knows about than most of the rest of us put together. Also, he not only has the gall to like Creeping Charlie, (I thought I was the only one!) but the courage to say so (Yes! Yes!). Because he writes about flood damage, health crises, and Codiaeum variegatum with equal passion and finesse.

Grow it, Eat it
I know we’re not supposed to take into account writing style for this award, but you’ve got to love anyone who tosses off remarks like this one, about an over-busy life: “I am putting in long hours and it’s a feat to just get dinner made before we both eat the table.” (Sept. 23) I mean, don’t you?

Besides that, Heather has more great recipes per square inch of computer screen than anyone else I’ve encountered.

Compostings
It’s a stretch for me even to acknowledge anyone whose peppers were still going strong in late September (the hail got all of mine back in July), but honesty compels me to admit that this is a great blog. Recipes for salsa, pictures of a mouse with fangs, ideas for crazy reality-TV shows (as if the producers needed help!), a marvelous spoof of various “challenges” titled  “100 Millimeter Challenge: Eat Local or Die Trying”—and that’s all just in a couple of weeks.

Blogging at Blackpitts Garden
James had the most creative (weird?) post titles, one of the easiest to navigate, easy-on-the-eyes blog lay-outs, more than his fair share of experience and expertise, and hey, he’s no slouch as a writer, either. He’s also a very nice guy. He pops up all over the web, dropping a wry comment here, a quip there, and whenever someone’s having a hard time, there’s a line from James. Besids, he's got great hats.

THANK YOU again, Victoria, for bestowing this award on me. I'll get the picture up as soon as I can figure out how.

Blame Blotanical--it's not my fault!

And so, I have just wasted used employed whiled away another whole delightful morning (and then some) on Blotanical, the only gardening forum I've joined so far where I actually spend any time. Way too much time, at that--so much I may find myself without a job, a husband, or even a garden, as I'm spending time online I should probably spend digging and planting.

Stuart, who runs the site, recently asked for patience as he struggled to fix a malfunctioning page; he pointed out that he was managing the site on top of a full-time job and a family that needs him. My family needs me too! (Of course, it's a bunch of guys who'd rather slit their throats than admit it, but Stuart doesn't know that.)

You'd think, then, that he'd have more sympathy for the rest of us, but no, he just goes merrily along adding new members  whose sites one must check out and interesting features and so on. I thought I'd at least get a breather while the Picks page was down, but that was only a day or so ago, and it's already up again! Is there no mercy?

I swear, every day when I log on, I promise myself I'll be off again in an hour at most. But first I check my own "plot" to see if I have any new messages (one of the neat features at Blotanical is that you can message other members directly and EASILY), and of course I have to respond to anything new, and check out the plots and blogs of all the folks I've heard from or gotten to know, and then there's the infamous Picks site, (the one that went blitzo the other day), where one can view a list of the 200 most recent posts by members (on their own, independent blogs) and "pick" ones you like. Of course, it's absolutely necessary to check the standing of one's own most recent posts and e-mail thanks to anyone fool kind enough to pick them--one of the best ways to waste time get to meet other bloggers.

Today the site has a new, format--each post-title is followed by a line or two of text--which is neat in itself, but which makes getting through them all very time-consuming and searching for a particular post downright maddening. So really, it's Stuart's fault, entirely, that I've gotten no "real" work done yet today. (We will, please, ignore the many other mornings when I spent as long on the site, even when the Picks page was, indeed, a single page.)

So what with picking a few posts and commenting on a few others, and finding a hilarious post on The Garden Monkey and searching for it through all those pages of new picks so as to give it my personal thumbs up, and discovering two new forums and registering with them and writing a comment to Stuart about not liking the new Picks page, and so on (not to mention doing THIS), I haven't gotten a whole lot done today.

If I do lose my job (I work at home, so no one's watching over my shoulder) do you think I could sue Stuart for lost wages? (Don't worry, Stuart, you wouldn't be out much.)