The Contented Naturalist

Happy October, all! Welcome to Blogtober 2021. This is a blog challenge that I’m using to help me restart both this blog in general, and my own blog habits specifically.

You’ll notice a few things are different for The Contented Naturalist. I switched platforms as of a few days ago. Blogger no longer supports following by email, so I decided it was finally time.

If you’re new here, or it’s been long enough that you want a refresher, I mostly post about nature. Topics include where and how I find and engage with the natural world, enjoyable excursions (and sometimes failed ones too), observations and musings. I especially love insects, spiders, other arthropods—beetles, butterflies, moths, anything with more than four legs. I am not a morning person, and when I discovered that bugs got up at a much more reasonable time than the proverbial early birds, I was hooked! My second love is tied between herps (reptiles & amphibians) and birds.

To get things started, I created my own set of prompts for the month challenge when I couldn’t find another set that I really clicked with. If you’d like to use the list, go ahead! I’d love it if you let me know — I’d be happy to update this post with links to participating blogs. Heck, even if you decide to try the challenge but don’t have a public blog of any kind, I’d like to hear that too. We can still build our own little community.

What can you expect for Blogtober? One post from me every single day. I’ll use the list of prompts above. Sometimes I’ll be literal, other times more figurative.

What can you expect from The Contented Naturalist after Blogtober? Honestly, who knows. Part of my hope with this challenge is to build blogging habits that are sustainable. For the last few years I’ve often written a draft of a post, but never gotten it out of the pages of my spiral notebook afterward. So I’m experimenting with techniques and times and locations too—writing rough drafts straight onto my computer, and trying coffee shops and other places to write where I don’t have unlimited distractions like I do at my own apartment. These distractions include, but are not limited to, my young cat Luna who demands I play with her. (You can see by the photo below why I have such a hard time resisting her.) I hope I can maintain posting at least once per week after this month is done.