Thank you for subscribing to bedlamfarm.com or for considering it. Our world is changing rapidly, and I am changing with it. The life of the writer has moved online, I have moved with it. Books are still precious, they are still important, but they are one part of a writer’s life now, rarely the only part.

This is my 18,062nd post since starting my blog in 2007, I have posted more than 10,000 photographs here. All of this material is free, I do not watermark my photos or protect my writing. It is my offering to the new world.

I never imagined so much change in the life of the writer, it frightens me sometimes, it excites me. I want to master it.  I love this blog, this is my medium, my forum, my genre. Subscriptions are important, they make it possible for me to remain a writer, to pay for this blog, the maintenance, the time it takes to write, the photographs and the photographic equipment.

Subscriptions matter, it is important and worthwhile for me to be paid for my work. It also helps keep the blog free for people who cannot afford to pay for it, that is important to me. The blog is free whether you subscribe or not, but if you do, you can choose from a number of options: you can pay a suggested $60 a year, you pay $3 a month or $5 a month, depending on your budget or resources. You can also send a check to to P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816 if you are uncomfortable subscribing online.

You can subscribe using your credit cards or Paypal, you manage your own account, I have no access to it, I cannot start or stop subscriptions, you can cancel at any time, you will be reminded a week before the subscriptions expire. No financial data is stored in my site and for your protection, no one but you can manage your contributions. It is easy to subscribe, easy to cancel.

As an author and former journalist, I believe it is essential that facts, truth and civil discourse survive, even as much of traditional journalism declines. My blog is, in many ways, the new journalism, the new writing.  I promote civil discourse, I welcome discussion and disagreement. I forbid hostility and cruelty, my blog is a safe place to meet and think. And all I want is to make people think, it is not important to me that everyone agrees with me. And that is a good thing, because many people do not.

In our contentious and chaotic world, it is important that we think about the world and come and talk and share ideas together. Subscriptions make that possible. There hardly are any royalties any more. There are about four million visits a year to my blog, there are usually 100,000 or more people on my Facebook Page. Very few subscribe, but more and more people understand some form of payment is necessary of writers and artists are to survive. I thank you.

Here, just about every day, and most often several times a day, I share my life, my animals, my thoughts. Once upon a time, that was what E.B. White did, or Joseph Mitchell or any of the other great writers I so admired. I am pleased to try and follow in their footsteps, even if they are usually too big for me.

This is, I believe and hope, my living memoir, my great work.  I am proud to be a part of that, I want to make the change, not squawk about a changing world. So thank you for your subscriptions, they matter, a great deal.