If my blog is meaningful or entertaining or stimulating to you, please consider helping me to pay for my words, photos, and for the blog’s maintenance. I hope you enjoy sharing my life with Maria and with the wonderful animals on the farm, it is a miracle to me.

It is immensely gratifying to have this blog, perhaps the most creative thing I have ever done. There are millions of visits each year from all over the world. It is also expensive and time-consuming, a true labor of love. I love working on it every day.

Publishing has changed, and authors like me need to diversity their sources of income. Advances and sales and book royalties have all declined since the recession.  I will (hopefully) always do my books, but the blog has become the centerpiece of my creative life. Amazing.

I am pioneering the new life of the modern writer, there is nothing more creative than change.

The photographs are now as big a part of the blog as my writing. It is a gift to be able to share things like the greening of the deep woods in Spring.

The blog is free, but there is a program where people can (voluntarily) support it in several inexpensive ways – a one-time payment of $75 a year, or smaller payments of $5 or $10 a month, depending on your income and resources. I don’t think I can make it any easier.

Although the blog has nearly 400,000 unique visitors each year,  few contribute to it financially.

There is room to grow. Writers and artists will have to be paid for their work, if they are to make the transition I am making and following my readers online.

Thanks for considering it. The blog takes most of my work time, and photography is an expensive art, as you know.

If you can’t afford it, or don’t wish to pay, the blog will remain free and fully accessible to you. This has to be something you wish to do, not something you have to do. . Everyone is welcome to share the posts and photos in any way they wish, I don’t bookmark the pictures. You are free to reprint and share the posts, I see the blog as monologue, but also a partnership.

Use the photos them as screen-savers, print them out, share them. I will never abandon the people who have stayed with me since the blog started in 2007, whether they have money or not.

And I am determined to continue my work as a writer, and to be relevant in the new world of the author.

I have no access to your money or credit cards (we take credit cards and Paypal or checks – some send cash) which can be sent to Post Office Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816.) I cannot start or stop payments, for your protection. You have an easy-to-access account where you can start or cancel a payment at any time. It works well.

The voluntary payment system is somewhat revolutionary. Some people contribute regularly without fail, some people come and go all the time, depending on their bills, obligations and time.  I try to make it as simple as possible, I know what it is like to be pressed.

No financial information of any kind is stored on my blog or servers, and two security companies monitor all traffic in and out of the site at all times.

Payments are important, they keep the blog alive and growing and vibrant. Without them, it would be difficult to maintain a blog of this quality and frequency.  I post just about every day (except for vacations) and more than once. Please consider sharing my life with Maria and the animals and paying me for my work if you can and are so inclined. It matters.

For five years I refused to accept payments for my work. Getting paid for my work is better. Thanks for thinking about it.