FINDING KATHY

            Not all of us can claim whiz-kid status in the fast-moving world of cyberspace. I count myself fortunate to live with a whiz, even when the concept he’s earnestly explaining to me might as well be in Klingon. As a lyric in a Tom Rush song goes, “The words are nice the way they sound, / It doesn’t matter what they mean.”

            Nonetheless. I recently learned that a not inconsiderable number of readers receive GFTGU in an email format, which means they miss out on the bells and whistles of the actual website. These include subscribing options, lists of acronyms, good reads and pertinent websites, a handy search function, an archive, a constantly updating site meter, and a poll application (remember the lightning bug question back in June?).  No ads will pop up, because I refuse to flog anything.

         Tim gave our friend Chuck extensive instructions in an email. Apparently, Chuck doesn’t speak Klingon either. So for all of us hapless old farts, here’s the drill in pictures. (At last! A use for those early-childhood education classes I took 400 years ago!)

             How does one get to the blog website?

           Type gardeningfromthegroundup.blogspot.com—all one word, no spaces—in your browser’s search bar. Click “Search.” We use Google, so it looks like this on my computer:

    
           The computer will then display a page of clickable “Gardening from the Ground Up” options, like this:

            Click on one that looks promising. My sophisticated method is to start at the top. Anything that says “Blog archive” or lists a specific title in the text will get you here:

        
                 Ooooh! you purr.

            The left side of the site is the post. If you click on the pictures, they enlarge. If you click on highlighted text, it will take you to the website I’ve been talking about. On the right side are the bells and whistles mentioned above.

Directly below the title picture is the site meter, steadily counting hits. Under that is the SUBSCRIBE NOW: FEED ICON in black print, followed by an orange icon and Subscribe in a Reader in green print, just above a “Blotanical” tag. (Blotanical is a gardening-blog clearinghouse site I signed up for at Tim’s behest. I don’t really know why.) Ignore all that stuff.
 

Under Blotanical, however, are the magic words SUBSCRIBE VIA EMAIL in black, followed by Subscribe to Gardening From the Ground Up by Email. You’ll want to click on the green words, which will take you to this page:

Type in your email address and decode the magic symbol, then click on “Complete Subscription Request.” Bob’s your uncle, you’re in!

Ahhhh! you murmur.

The very next time I enter a post, you’ll get an email that will look something like this:

Here's what I get from the blog Gardening Gone Wild. I just click on the grey title, and the site pops up. Easy peasy, right?

If you continue scrolling down the right side of the GFTGU site, you’ll pass ACRONYMS EXPLAINED, GOOD READS, and LINKS TO SOURCES AND SITES before getting to the next batch of interesting stuff, which looks like this:

SEARCH THIS BLOG is for finding specific topics by using keywords. For instance, if you want to find the post that shows how to plant bulbs without digging, type “bulbs” in the box and click “Search.” Go back up to the top of the left side of the site, where every reference to bulbs will be listed in a clickable format. Pretty neat, huh?

Under SEARCH THIS BLOG is FOLLOWERS. If you’d like to become a follower, click on Join This Site in the blue box. This is what comes up:

Click on wherever you have your email account: mine is Google. A new screen’ll pop up:

Sign in and follow instructions.

Below the followers is the BLOG ARCHIVE, a list of all posts to date, which might be of use someday.

One last explication, about making comments. At the very bottom of the post, after I thank you for dropping by, you’ll see this:

 

Click on 0 Comments, and this is what comes up:

Type in your comment, and I promise to respond.

Oho! you say.

So that’s all there is to it. Let me know if the pictorial approach helped (Chuck). And thanks for dropping by.

                                                                        Kathy