When I fill the birdfeeders outside, I dump a scoop on the ground. Mourning doves prefer to eat off the ground; they're not big on perching at feeders. Honestly the sparrows fling enough seed onto the ground that it's not necessary for me to contribute myself, but I figure it's nice for them to have options. The squirrels like it too, I think. Nobody seems to like the larger kernels of corn that come in the seed mix I got at the discount grocery store next to the Goodwill next to the CVS. You would think the starlings or raccoons or possums that eat the cat food on the porch would be tempted, but it seems like they either don't like it or haven't noticed it. There's a lot of corn on the ground, and sunflower seed shells.
The sparrows prefer the sunflower seeds, but those are more expensive at the moment. Sometimes they're cheap at Ocean State Job Lot, but it's hit or miss.
The violets are blooming, and the daffodils, and there's a few dandelions popping up. Forsythia bushes and magnolia trees, too. Spring has sprung.
I gathered seeds from flowers that grew last year and kept them in the fridge in a bag. I put them in the ground in a little square of dirt, surrounded by the short ends of B's unused raised beds. I planted larkspur and scallions and carrots, too, from little seed packets I shoplifted, and strawberries from crowns that came in a plastic bag. I'm not good at gardening, so who knows what I'll end up with. The spot gets some sun, the dirt is from bags, I water it sometimes. A few tiny sprouts have popped up already, though who knows what they are - could be anything at this point. My memory of where I planted things is already only approximate. I was going to do tidy lines, but I ended up mixing and matching a bit, since there were fewer of some seeds than I realized (stingy!).
Yesterday I got five books from the library and took my cat to the vet.
I keep writing blog entries and then never finishing them or deleting them entirely... I'm not much of a "posting" type of person. This past web site year I created and deleted accounts on Pillowfort, Bluesky, Melonland, and Reddit. I have a Fediverse I barely use. Might delete that, too. I don't tend to socialize online; when I do it doesn't stick.
I keep going back and forth on why I even have a blog at all, what the point of it is - I don't really know. It's not a diary, it's not about anything, and it doesn't come very easily to me. What is the point of having a website at all, for that matter? I could just take it down and keep it to myself.
Speaking of which, I'm at 300,000 views according to Neocities's bonkers viewcount that I'm pretty sure doesn't really work. The real number is much smaller, I'm sure, but even 1% of 300,000 is still a lot. It's also been just about a year since I started working on it regularly. More than a year - I think I started working on it regularly last March? And I created it a couple years before that. Not really an anniversary, but whatever.
I like my website. I like that it exists online, for now. Someone else might like it or find something on it fun or useful, which is a pretty good reason for it to be online. Same as having my fanfiction on AO3 - somebody might want to read it, so I might as well make it available. I am one person and I like it when there's a fanfic that's up my alley, so there's probably at least one other person in the world at some point in time who will be happy to find my fanfiction / website. But I do feel weird about it. I don't like being looked at, and I don't like attracting attention in any capacity, so it's a rickety balance. Too much attention will ruin my ability to have fun.
At the moment there is something comforting in the plausible deniability aspect of both Neocities' dubious accuracy and the further complicating factors of scrapers and bots. For all I know the actual human viewcount is just the number of people who have specifically told me they've looked at my website. Which is closer to, I don't know... 25 guestbook messages plus 2 friends plus a handful of other people here and there, call it 35-40? That's a lot easier to stomach. That's a good respectable number! That's several classrooms full. A whole bus, probably. Maybe more. I'm not sure how many people fit on a bus actually?
Today I'm going to do some errands. It's cloudy and rainy, which is my favorite weather, so I'm full of energy even though raccoons and a (lost? stray?) cat kept me up past three in the morning. I think people usually say "thank you" for viewer milestone type things, but there's not really anything to thank in this case. It's not like I get money from it or anything.... So, instead, "you're welcome" !