This Blog Thing

This Flora Wonder Blog thing is interesting to me, especially considering that three or four years ago I didn't even know what a blog was. At first I assumed it was a blockage that could be relieved by prunes, Metamucil, or at its worst, Ex-lax. In my narrow world, the blog word suddenly went from nowhere to everywhere, and it seems preposterous that old Buchholz now produces one once a week. Of course I include lots of photos, knowing that many of you are not inclined to slog through the verbiage*

*The origin of verbiage is from French verbe for "word," and from that you have verbeier, "to chatter."

My IT nerd, Seth, tracks a number of blog statistics, and presents them to me for my wonderment or amusement. For example, I apparently have 143 "followers." That's not very many it seems, but on the other hand why do I have any? Why are 143 of you "following" me, and where do you think I am going to lead you? Do you really think I know where I am going?

By checking "Operating Systems," Seth knows that 66% of you check out Flora Wonder Blog with a desk or laptop computer, 5% with an iPad, 18% with a phone and 11% with a Macintosh (oh come on!) computer. Since I'm always dubious, I added up all of those percentages, and lucky for Seth that it totaled 100%. He currently has no way of tracking how many cosmic aliens are tuned in, but chances are...

Seth reports that most page views (which Google insists is just one word: pageviews) occur on Fridays, with an impressive dagger-like spike at that. By far the majority come from the United States, as I would expect, followed in order by:

2 Canada

3 France

4 Germany

5 United Kingdom

6 Poland

7 Russia

8 Czech Republic

9 Belgium

10 Italy

What's with that, U.K., why are you barely ahead of Poland and Russia? And Germany, what's the excuse that France is ahead of you? Japan? Testing, testing Japan? And then there is The Netherlands; good grief, you are not in the top ten?! Wake up you bike-riders, you canal-vaulters, you gouda-heads. Did it all begin and end with the tulip? Perhaps you will reply that you are too busy making euros to bother with an obscure American blog...which reminds me of a joke:

Question: Where was copper wire invented?

Answer: Holland.

How, why?: Two Dutchmen fighting over a penny.

For me it is incredible that there have been hundreds of thousands of pageviews on the Flora Wonder Blog; and really, don't you have anything better to do on a Friday night? The most popular so far (but remember, all blogs continue to grow) is Buchholz Introductions, next is Cultivars of Pinus parviflora, and that followed by Momiji Madness. I know, I know that most of you are not necessarily interested in me, and that you are not "following" me, but still, we apparently have something in common.

Sorry this is such a skimpy report, but Seth and I are actually in North Carolina now...or is it Tennessee? If we can get released for good behavior, we'll be back next week for a real Flora Wonder Blog.

"Talon, I can barely wait."