A woman in a gray “Cape Cod Peters Pond” sweatshirt holds a Harris’s hawk on a gloved hand, standing against a light-colored wall.

Good Morning, Friends

A Year of Consistency

A desk calendar stands upright with its February page flipping, showing a grid of numbered days. Long‑time readers and followers of this space may have noticed a few changes this year — and the biggest one is posting consistency.

Around Dusty Roads has been around for 15 years. My first post was on Blogger back in 2011. I eventually moved to WordPress, and that’s where we’ve stayed ever since. I’m sure WordPress will tell me exactly how long when our anniversary rolls around — no plans to change that.

If you’ve been here from the beginning, you know I was never too consistent with my posts. I was pretty diligent on vacations, treating this space like an online travel diary, but once I got home and went back to work, Around Dusty Roads often got set aside.

Well… I’m retired now. No excuses.

So I made a commitment to posting regularly. And so far, I’ve posted every day for 415 days. That’s more than a year, but my goal is to make it through a full calendar year — so on January 1, we’ll celebrate one full year of daily posts.

A Slight Name Change

Right after COVID, around 2022, I lost my domain — so Around Dusty Roads had to change. Instead of the original address aroundustyroads.com, we became arounddustyroads.com.

Yup, an extra “D.” Not cutesy, but honestly easier to remember: three little words all strung together, no missing letters this time.

The Growth of WMEO

We’ve grown, too.

WMEO has joined our little family. What started out as a stand‑alone fun post has turned into a recurring character. Banner and Balboa make excellent anchors for the feline news desk. You won’t see them every day, but they’ll pop in with observations and commentary from the cats’ point of view whenever something catches their eye.

Facebook Noticed

I always share my posts on Facebook — and they noticed. I’ve been given Creator Status there. I’m not entirely sure what that entails, but I know it has to do with consistent, original posting.

So yay for me… or rather, yay for the Around Dusty Roads team and the newsroom of WMEO. Even though the “team” is me and two cats, I also have my AI editor, and that has made things run much more smoothly.

Looking Ahead: A New Logo

I’m trying to create a new logo. Old me holding a raptor doesn’t really capture the flavor of where we’ve grown. My AI partner says I’m a storyteller, so we’ve kicked around the idea of a rocking chair on a porch — but it isn’t quite gelling for me yet.

Still, my subconscious came up with a poem if we choose that logo.

I’m not much of a poet, and truth be told, I don’t like most poems. My two favorites are October’s Bright Blue Weather by Helen Hunt Jackson and Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken. But occasionally my mind does weird things, and it woke me up with this one for Around Dusty Roads:

So pull up a chair,

while I tell you a tale,

a story of long, long ago…

where legends rose from a campfire’s glow

and wanderers found their way home

around dusty roads.

And now, we’ve sketched the first version — a rocking chair framed by a sunrise glow and a mountain horizon, with a dusty road winding toward the distance. It feels closer to the heart of Around Dusty Roads: simple, warm, and a little nostalgic.

I’d love to know what you think. Does this design feel like home to you? Would you change anything — or does it capture the spirit of the stories we share here?

Your Turn

Lots more is in the works, but if you have any suggestions or ideas for a logo, please share. And tell me how long you’ve been reading my little corner of the internet — I’d love to know if you’re a long‑time friend or a newcomer.