Wrenaissance Nature Blog

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  • The web and the wheel

    When I first created a webpage, back in the 1990s, the World Wide Web was a bright, shiny, new thing and only geeks and nerds were creating content. I started Wrenaissance because I wanted to publicize the National Wildlife Federation’s Backyard Habitat Program and encourage other people to turn their yards into wildlife-friendly places. There were a small group of other website owners doing the same or similar, and we were an enthusiastic albeit chaotic, unorganized bunch. No one had any thought that what we were creating on the web could be a money-making operation.

    That lasted no time. Webpage creation software like Microsoft’s Front Page opened up content creation to more people, the big players started to have their own sites (including NWF), and wild web growth ensued. Webpages became more sophisticated and technically complex to create, eventually reaching a point where you needed programming skills to create a webpage. I moved away from hand-coding HTML to using various software packages. Along came blogs, and Blogger, and WordPress. A new nature blog community formed and I was an enthusiastic participant.

    But my life had its own trajectory. I took on ever more responsible positions at work, and two things happened. First, web content creation moved out of my job description and into someone else’s, making anything I did on the web solely a hobby. Second, I had less time for any hobbies. So it all became hit or miss for me for close to two decades. I started and stopped blogging multiple times, reluctant to completely let it go, but unable to give it the time or attention needed for it to be successful.

    The web moved on as well, becoming the behemoth of content, presence, attention, and dollars that it is today. I’m retired and once more have time, but my interests have moved on. Given what wealth of information exists about nature on the web today, it’s hard to feel that I’m making a contribution here.

    So this time, it’s good-bye for real. I won’t delete this content, but I may let the URL revert to wrenaissance.wordpress.com. Earlier content will remain in the Internet Archive if anyone cares to excavate it.

    I’m moving on to exploring my creative writing and philosophical/theological thoughts. (I knew that BA in Religion would come in handy one fine day.) If that interests you, you can follow me over on Substack. If not, I understand – it was great, and great fun while it lasted.

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  • The Morning After

    The Morning After

    As you can see, we got some snow. The tops of the deck lights give the clearest picture of how much. Not bad for a Michigan winter. Though I’m not a native Michigander and mostly think of snow and cold on a Virginia scale, I find that I really can look at 4-6 inches of the white stuff and shrug. No big deal. This much snow would have paralyzed the Washington, DC, area. Michigan dusts off the roads and gets on with its business.

  • Snowmegeddon Predicted

    Snowmegeddon Predicted

    For days, we’ve had a winter storm watch, followed by a winter storm warning. It’s Michigan, it’s February, but you’d think it had never snowed within a hundred miles of here from the hype. I avoided the frenzy of bread-milk-toilet paper buying yesterday, but did go out for my regular weekly grocery restock. The cats and I are settled in for the duration, with the fireplace to counteract the gray skies outside. I have my dark chocolate and hazelnut-flavored coffee, a large stack of books, and the world at my internet fingertips. It’s all good.

    The photo above is the baseline as of 9:30 this morning when it began to snow. It was warm – in the 40s – yesterday, so most of the accumulated snow of January had melted away by last night.

  • A new hobby

    A new hobby

    It’s called Zentangle™. As someone who always believed she could not draw, I’m impressed I can produce these designs. I’ve read that your hand gets steadier with practice, so I have hopes of improving. On the other hand, if I don’t get any better – well, too bad. I’m enjoying it.

    You can read more about it at the official Zentangle website or at Tangle Addicts, the website of my teacher, Heather Hartwick-Gladden, CZT.