Blogging Struggles: Is it Still Worth the Time?

Today's post isn't related to farming. It's more of a questioning of "Is this the right thing to keep doing?" kind of post. Since everything's been paid up for another year, it only makes sense to keep moving forward so that the money isn't wasted. While money does get wasted on things sometimes, I also try not to waste it if it's already been spent, such as the payments for the website and domain name.

It's been a year since the inception of Tyler Farm's blog, though not the farm itself, and the progress hasn't been as significant as anticipated, or more realistically, aimed for; although, without a goal to aim for, it's hard to know where you want to go with a website. The lack of readership is disheartening to say the least, especially when even family and close friends show little (ok, no) interest in the content. The presence of health issues such as ADHD, coupled with a pessimistic outlook, add to the challenges of maintaining this blog.

In addition, the responsibilities of finishing up a Bachelor's degree, preparing for graduate school that starts in October, managing a full-time job, and attending to the daily demands of a farm are overwhelming at times. I'm sure not a lot of people would admit to that, but there it is. Juggling work, school, and daily farm chores can become overwhelming when things, including writing posts, pile up. This leads to nothing being done other than work, sleep, or reading, the last being an effort to avoid doing things that need to be done. Of course, this also leads to avoiding writing posts because it just feels like something else that has to be done.

The recent loss of our oldest cat a few weeks ago is still taking time to mourn, at least for me. However, since it's been a few weeks, it's also getting a little easier to move on each day. I still have times when I forget she's gone and I'll call out to the cats in the plural rather than than singular, or I'll occasionally still try to keep her on the hall side of our 5-foot-tall hall gate when I go into the other half of the house. (This prevents our 2-year-old German Shepherd from jumping over it to go after the cats due to her very high prey drive.) Our second cat, who has been diabetic for the last two or three years, has been given, at best, only a few more months with us, which is causing me great distress. Yes, they're just cats, but to us they're family.

While the blogging itself is a new experience, it's also one that takes time to do. In the beginning, it's easy to make the time to write a post a day, but then life becomes more hectic with work and daily events. A long day of work makes it easy to put off writing a post since that takes more brain power than can be spared on that much thinking. Sometimes the lack of a post idea, or having too many to narrow down for each post, makes it easy to skip a day or two, which can turn into weeks.

I'm not a natural writer, so while I enjoy writing, I'm not very good at it. When I had to write my final paper for my Bachelor's degree, I was so worn out that one of my sentences was literally just a comment to "make more money." Of course, that was just a reminder to myself where I wanted to go with that paragraph, but at that time that was the best I could come up with. 🙄

Would I like to be able to earn an income from this? Absolutely! Not only would I be able to do something I enjoy, but it would enable me to be at home rather than at a dead-end job. Yes, having a job pays for everything, but it's exhausting if it's something you have to do each day just to pay the bills. I'm much happier being at home, taking care of the livestock and garden, and making sure the sheep don't get into the chicken feed.

Earning money from blogging takes time, which is understandable. This only works if the website has people visiting the website and reading what's on it. Even something as simple as adding Google ads to the website takes a certain number of monthly visitors before they'll allow them onto the website.

Is continuing this website and the blogging that goes with it worth it it to me? I still don't have an answer to that. Since everything's been paid up for another year, I'll just keep at it. I'll try to be more consistent with posts, but don't hold me to that.