Today I started two things I’ve tried to start a handful of times before: sourdough starter and this blog.

Sourdough starter on Day One doesn’t look like much; it’s only a combination of rye flour, bread flour, and water, after all.  But, with care and feeding, it should develop into a living source of wonderful bread and other carb-laden bites of happiness every week.  It needs feeding every day, for without that, it will fail.

So too with this blog, and my writing in general.  I sporadically have rising attempts to write regularly, then I allow other things to get in the way, and my routine crumbles.  But, if I can feed our animals in sun or sleet, stretch into yoga pretzels every morning while the coffee drips, and shovel through the crust of soil in the spring and snow in the winter, then I should be able to find time to write as well.

Thanks are owed to a friend and former coworker who, when I was in my waning days of my previous too-stressful corporate job, said to me out of the blue, “when you get settled in at your new calmer job, find some time to write again at Copper and Flannel Dreams.”  As a writer, I never assume anyone is reading what I am writing; sure, it’s a hope, but the bottles tossed into the ocean rarely return.  It was a moment of quiet elation for me when someone that I had no idea was reading what I wrote made that warm comment, a comment he had been holding for at least two years since I last posted anything here.  To my friend Bob, thank you.

Here’s to starters that don’t look like much, to regular feeding, to wonderful bread, and to words that float their way to friends near and far.