Being Columbus

A few days ago I set sail for a new world. My plan was to explore it, meet the indigenous peoples and see if I could trade with them.

It is extremely strange. I don’t think that I have met any of the locals yet. I can’t figure out how they communicate with each other because they all seem to be invisible. I am enjoying being there despite the lack of progress and today I thought that I would show them some baubles in the hope of initiating some kind of trade. (They can see this post) I will accept anything of value in exchange for my trinkets.

To keep my friends back home entertained (They can also see this post) these are all new baubles and today my baubles will all be flowers.

This one is called the Scarlet Pimpernel.

Scarlet Pimpernel

Scarlet Pimpernel

Scarlet Pimpernel

Scarlet PimpernelThere is also a Yellow Pimpernel, related by family but a different genus.

Yellow PimpernelThat is enough Pimpernels.

This next one is a Speedwell. This is Thyme-leaved Speedwell.

Thyme-leaved Speedwell

Thyme-leaved Speedwell

Thyme-leaved Speedwell

Thyme-leaved SpeedwellThere are quite a few different Speedwells and while the structure of the plant may vary a lot, the flower tells you that this is another type of Speedwell.

Wood Speedwell.

Wood SpeedwellGermander Speedwell.

Germander SpeedwellThe very  tiny Ivy-leaved Speedwell comes in two colours.

Veronica hederifolia subspecies hederifolia

Ivy-leaved Speedwelland

Veronica hederifolia subspecies lucorum

Ivy-leaved SpeedwellOther than colour they are pretty much identical.

Last of the Speedwells for now this one is Common Field-speedwell.

Common Field SpeedwellHere is one that everyone knows, I have seen this on a lot of blogs this summer.

This is Queen Anne’s Lace (Wild Carrot)

Queen Anne's Lace

Queen Anne's Lace

Queen Anne's Lace

Queen Anne's LaceSo this is what has happened:

From time to time somebody visits me from the other side. I am trying to reach out and contact them. I have put a foot on their land, let us see if they want to trade.

A Tramp on Blogger

Blogger is a complete mystery to me but it only takes me a few minutes to copy and paste something that I have written for this blog into the other world.

If anybody here understands their culture then I could use a few tips.

I can’t see how they like a post. There is a little +1 sign that has appeared at the bottom of one of my posts, that may be their way of saying that somebody liked it but if so then how do you find out who liked it?

I can’t find a way to search for blogs that I may like, for instance to search for blogs about nature.

It is a very alien world but I am trying to emphasize that I come in peace and for trade. Later if they don’t die of our diseases and we can’t convert them then we will probably have to shoot them and steal their land. I think that is what colonists do but I will do some more research first. (Let’s keep that amongst ourselves for now)

I will just show them one more trinket. There are so many to choose from….

How about Ragged Robin?

Ragged Robin

Ragged Robin

Ragged Robin

Ragged Robin

I will let you know if I am able to make contact with anyone from the other side. It is all very exciting, I wonder what they will look like, just like you and me I guess 🙂

41 thoughts on “Being Columbus”

    1. Thanks Ibeth 🙂 I have heard that about Queen Anne’s Lace. I think that it might derive from the speck of “blood” in the centre of the flower but I think that red speck is probably an insect lure.

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  1. WordPress is enough world for me, since it works well and doesn’t make me shake my head and say words that aren’t so good. Love the photos of the flowers. Each of your posts has so much information, and 🙂 .

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    1. Thank you Sarasin 🙂 I chose WP because I prefer the way that it displays my photographs, by coincidence it also seems to have a much better social structure. Looks like I made the right choice 🙂

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      1. I find it very easy to navigate and also gives you a lot of choices. Almost 5 years into it, I’ve been happy with it. I also like the way it displays your photography!

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    1. Thanks Joey 🙂 I would be surprised if you didn’t at least have Ivy-leaved Speedwell, it grows almost everywhere. It is such a tiny flower it is very easy to overlook. I have to get on my knees just to see that the sparkly bits are actually flowers 🙂 I like “wanted weeds.”

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    1. Thanks Don 🙂 At the moment I can’t see why anyone would choose Blogger unless they made a mistake. When you decide to start out blogging you have to choose a platform and I suppose that a lot of people will choose the wrong one. There must be more to it than that. I am staying with WordPress, just extending a hand of friendship to people less fortunate than myself 🙂

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    1. Thank you Gigi 🙂 In an effort to extend communication between our two separate cultures I am planning to create a “Blogs I follow” list on my Blogger page but they will be WordPress blogs. A short list but I want it to be as diverse as possible. I actually follow a lot of WP blogs and can’t add them all. I wanted to add yours, I doubt that these people have ever heard of Chicago but maybe they inhabit a parallel universe and have a Chicago of their own. There is so much to discover 🙂

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  2. I switched from blogger to WP about six years ago. I used my blog mostly to share photos with friends and family who were scattered around the country and I was surprised when total strangers started liking my posts and following my blog. I think WP does more to promote blogs and it has better tools for finding blogs and posts of interest.

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  3. Love the flower shots and identification.
    (Methinks I have identified some of my own flower shots incorrectly).

    As to Blogger etc. I am gradually getting the ‘hang of blogging in general’. I have learned that not all WordPress templates act or are used in the same way for instance. I had a Google writing blog about 4 years ago (before I started my WordPress photoblog). Can’t remember that much about it other than you post & upload differently on Google Blogger blogs.

    It may be that you need to ‘click’ on the post title to actually get into a person’s post and ‘like’ them. No…….that didn’t work…..I tried opening it in a separate window and there doesn’t appear to be a ‘like’ button on Blogger?

    To find Nature blogs, the first thing I would do is (and I have the Google search engine set up as my ‘homepage’ and it opens when I log on each morning). I would type into the Google search box “Nature Blogs” or ‘World’s Best Nature Blogs’ for example. The most popular or most widely read would appear at the top of the result list. Of course, you may not like their style of writing or appearance. You might choose to type in a search for “British Nature Blogs” or you might get more selective and choose “Insect nature blogs”. It seems to be the first word of your search that directs the search engine. You might search for “Melbourne Nature Blogs” and end up with me in the result list – LOL.

    Also…..whatever tags you use in your own post (or other people’s) are how the search engine ‘finds’ the sites, so if I want people to find my Black and White Blog, I include the tags in my post as “Black and White, B & W, photography, city, people, street photography, street art (if it’s art), Melbourne, Melbourne City and so on.

    I put the words “Autumn, leaves, photography, nature, nature photography, garden, trees, Royal Botanic Gardens, leaf photography, flower photography, red flower, unusual flower, Gallardia, Blanket Flower” and so on to lead people. The more tags you use in your own blog, the more searchers will find your blog. I try to put the Common Name of all birds, animals, insect, flower (as well as the Latin or Botanical names).

    You’ve just given us the link to your Blogger site, so I have just filled in the email follow signup, but it seems you are posting the same articles & photos on both WordPress & Blogger, so I might choose to just follow one of them.

    There doesn’t appear to be a ‘Like’ button to press on Blogger? But I can ‘share’ your article on one of the social network sites listed which I belong to (e.g. twitter or Facebook) or press the word ‘comments’ listed in blue font to get in to type a comment to tell you how much I enjoyed your article. The other way to type a comment is to click on the title of that particular post and it will automatically come up with a comment ‘box’ at the bottom of that particular post/article. I no longer have a ‘Blogger’ account, so I had to use my ‘WordPress’ name if I wanted to comment on your Blogger site.

    All blogs and templates (within those blogging platforms), seem to be different. Just as you can personalise your blogging template, I notice you’re using The Twenty Fourteen Theme (which I started with and have now changed), my Google Blogger template probably operated and appeared different to the Google Blogger template YOU have chosen.

    Hope this helps. If I have typed info you already know, feel free to erase this comment, because once I’ve posted this comment, I can’t get in to edit or erase it (only you as the administrator of your blog can do that).

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    1. PS Your Blogger site wouldn’t allow me to leave a comment? Weird? I used the ‘wordpress’ name it asked for (as I no longer have a Blogger account).

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    2. Thanks Vicki 🙂 Firstly stay with this blog. There is no point in following on Blogger. I am not planning to do anything there other than to quickly paste my WP post and this is where our community is.

      Thanks for notifying me about the comment problem. I haven’t spent a lot of time designing that blog, I just whacked it up with the first template that I was offered. Settings were wrong and I have changed it now so that anyone can post comments. I stand a much better chance of making contact with the natives now that they are allowed to comment.

      Your tips for using search engines are not yielding very much on Blogger but searching for “Melbourne nature blogs” did take me to your photography blog and you have a new follower. Many thanks 🙂

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    1. Thanks David 🙂 Fizz is probably not the best ambassador when she finds something new she tends to bark first and ask questions later. I will speak to her 🙂

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  4. There are lots of traders out there but I suspect your baubles are not for them. Keep them safe and share them only with Fizz and us. I switched from Blogger many years ago (well, about 3) and I find WP broadly more user-friendly. Blogger seems harder when it comes to using tags and making yourself widely known, if that is what you wish. My cloak of invisibility never bothered me. A small +1 sign may be a link to Google Plus. Just guessing.

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    1. Thanks Andrew 🙂 That little +1 symbol must mean something because it has changed to a +2 but what it means remains a mystery. My comments were set to “Registered users only” which has probably hampered my early attempts to make contact. Their culture seems to be much less advanced than our own so I am still hoping that they will seize upon the shiny trinkets that I offer them and pay me in gold and diamonds and the furs of their minds 🙂

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  5. I started a Blogger account first . In about two weeks I was getting hundreds of hits with no comments. Then I learned about blogs that have a little program that just opens and closes automatically so that that blog gets huge stats and starts generating income from ads. So they are making money by piggy backing on me. So I killed my Blogger site and went WP. I still get a few follows from people wanting to sell something but I ignore them.
    I’ll trade a few flowers soon.

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    1. Thanks Eliza 🙂 More than enough, I find it hard to keep up with all that is happening on WP But…. If there really is a parallel universe, like ours but strangely different and if people there found a way to make contact and sent me a message. Well it’s intriguing and I am an explorer 🙂

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  6. The flowers are lovely. Could not chose a favorite. On reading some of the comments, I am glad I am a Follower. Sounds too time consuming and leaves little time for reading, doing arts and crafts, etc. Besides, you offer a great Blog. I will follow you and Fizz, joyfully. I learn a great deal.

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