Still running

I was thinking about the passage of time today. Marveling at just how quickly it goes by. I was out enjoying the day, using the car as a blind trying to capture a photo of a Snow Bunting, that I thought would be special, and fighting a losing battle to stay awake in my comfortable little set up.  As I listened to the Snow Bunting pouring forth his song from every prominent place but the one I was set up for (where I'd seen him last weekend during a count), I was surprised by a bird I did not expect to see. Not yet, and it wasn't where I was planning on looking for it. But up in front of me popped a pair of Northern Wheatears (Oenanthes oenanthes). Surprising me enough that I watched them and didn't try for a photo until they'd moved farther along.

I wondered about their journey, which took them from Africa, up into Europe, Greenland, before finally settling in here. The urge to breed driving them each year, to make that trip up, and then back. Does a year pass quickly for them? Or do they even know?

Years pass quickly for me now, for today is the House and other Arctic Musings' fourth blogoversary. Only a heartbeat ago I was writing up the third blogoversary post, and now the Earth has made another trip around the sun. Traditionally, I write  a little of the origins or inspiration for the blog, and offer up a selection of past posts from each month.

But events have distracted me today, and it is hard to keep focused on this celebration. And as I watch the clock tick closer to midnight I will quickly run out of time to get this in on my blogoversary, which I suppose is the point.

There was a time this year when it appeared that I wouldn't make the fourth anniversary of this first post. Ennui had set in, it seemed as each year came around I was trying to write something fresh about something I wrote about the previous year, I paid too much attention to stats and wondered if the dropping visitor numbers meant people felt the same way, and there were things happening in my non blog world that demanded my attention. But shortly into my hiatus I realized something critical, that I enjoy this.

I enjoy the writing, the challenge of seeking out a way of saying something that you might be interested in reading. I enjoy the communities I've found through this, and the friends I've made along the way. Most of whom I've never met face to face. Incredibly though, those I have ended up meeting, such as the inimitable Townie Bastard (the other Godfather of Nunavut Blogging), are still friends. The friendship survived the face to face encounter. Incredibly he (at any rate) turned out to be pretty much the person I thought he was. These on line friendships have become very important to me, and give validity to this endeavour. Probably more than any other, I value the online friendship I have with my inspiration for blogging, nuthatch. She (and her husband) remains the blogger I'd most like to meet in person, and I hope I one day will. There are many on that list of friends to actually meet one day, in the north, in the birding community, in the other blogging community, and I hope by not naming you all you won't be bothered.  You know who you are.

I while back, I noticed that another milestone would fall roughly the same time, two actually. One of them, the 200,000th visitor happened a month or so ago. The other today. I wish I could say it was coincidence, but trust me I made a big effort to have this milestone happen today. For in addition to this being the start of my fifth year of blogging (about one hundred and ninety-seven in "people years"), this is my one thousandth post.  Who knew I could stick with one thing this long? Certainly not my English teachers in High School.

So if you've been with me from the beginning, or just happened upon the House, thank you for stopping by. I hope you've found something entertaining in those 1000 bits of blather. I've said it before, but what a long strange trip its been.