Mushrooms and Quandary

When I first started this blogging experience, I didn't have a camera and my posts were just prose about what I had experienced while out on a walk or on a hunt/fish outing. My writing wasn't the greatest, but that was my ambition, to be a better writer. And I did get a little better along the way, if I do say so myself.

Then the time had come where two bloggers had stopped my site, at different times. In this first case, I had been out on the trails and one late spring day, heading to a trout stream, I walked up on two small raccoons climbing a tree, and I described how they were trying to sneak into a hole in a tree without me seeing them. This particular blogger stopped by and told me how great it would be to have a camera to capture these things. I took the blogger's comment meaning that it sure would be nice to have a camera to lend some credibility to what I was writing about.

The same thing happened when I had stopped and made pine tea after a hike on another early spring day. The post was about how easy it is to make and how nutritious pine tea is. But, I didn't have a camera to do a step-by-step tutorial and couldn't prove that I actually drink pine tea. A different blogger stopped by and told me the exact same thing about having a little bit of proof to what I have done, and it sure would be nice to hear from someone who had ACTUALLY DRANK pine tea. Needless to say, I have lost contact with these two and could not care less if they are successful in their blogging or outdoor adventures anymore.

Adding photos to my posts has been a blessing and a curse. The blessing is, that my posts do look much better, and that is what the internet wants. But, I love the old fashioned reading I grew up with, which is almost completely squashed these days. You know, the Gene Hill / Ted Trueblood type of thing, and the writing that appeared on the back pages of the outdoor magazines, before everyone had to be comedian. Stories were written where I could see myself in the writer's shoes and my imagination was put to use, based on my own experience, to help flesh out the story the writer was telling. To me, that part is special.

So now, for me, it's about finding balance between the story and the proving of it. Which can be hard for someone who is mostly a loner when comes to their time outdoors. Peace and solace is what I'm after when I'm out, but damn it to hell, I like to write, too, and have maybe found myself in the wrong medium. Maybe this is just trying to find my way, still.

I guess this has been grinding on me. Time to get on.