I put up a rough sketch of the new bedlamfarm.com banner – this one above is very close, in my mind – and the reaction was mostly quite favorable. Thanks for your comments.

I am reading them all and learning from them.

Not everyone liked it:

“I don’t understand this new direction, however humorous,” wrote Claudia, “of anthropomorphizing the sheep, donkeys, dogs. Wondering what’s up?” She seemed a bit huffy, but she really answered her own question.

I told her I called it humor, to be humorous is not a crime or a betrayal to me.  I think we need to laugh once in a while, especially these days, and I just like it. It is not a statement about  about emotionalizing animals one way or the other Sometimes we just need to lighten up.

If people come onto my blog and smile, I would be delighted. Nothing deeper than that, I’m afraid.

A number of others asked a good question: why no dogs in the banner? And that is a  fair question.

I asked the artist Abrah Griggs to leave dogs out of the banner.  Abrah is so gifted, she has a great sense of humor and a great sense of irony, and that’s what I’m going for.

The reason for excluding dogs from the banner was two-fold.

First, many people come onto bedlamfarm.com expecting and hoping for a blog devoted exclusively to dogs and photos of dogs. Secondly, the dogs get plenty of attention on my blog, other animals don’t get enough.

Lots of people are annoyed when they don’t see a photo fo each dog every day, and they let me know.

I tell them there are many sites on social media devoted exclusively to dogs and cute pictures of them. This is not one of them.

I understand the love of dogs very well, as I love dogs very much, but the blog has evolved quite a bit since I started publishing it in 2007.

Dogs will always be a central focus of my life and my writing, but no longer the only one.

My publishers have held me in that cage for years now, and the blog has liberated me to write about other things I care about – spirituality, love, refugees, farmers, my farm, Maria, creativity, a meaningful life,  staying grounded,  the aging, donkeys, Ali, The Mansion, sheep, carriage horses, farmers, books, movies, and yes, dogs.

So I would like the banner to reflect that. It reminds me – and others – that the blog has broadened, it is about a life and much more, and dogs are a major part of that, but only one part, and not the only part. It signals my own sense of freedom in my work now.

I write almost every day about my dogs, and take many photos of them,  that will increase when Bud gets here, so I want the banner to reflect the broader range of my blog and my writing, I am, at last, free to write what I want, and it took a long time to get there. And it took the blog, my publishers would never set me free.

Believe me, you will see plenty of dogs, I love to write about them, and am eager to resume my Small Dog Adventure next month. But my role model for writing from a farm is E.B. White, the essayist and author who wrote with so much thought and grace.

Hope that helps. This is valuable dialogue for me, and hopefully for you, We will have some work to do on this banner, but we are very close, and I’m very excited. Please continue to give me your feedback.