freshare Podcasts

I decided to start a podcast series on the freshare site and actually produced the first one in late December. Click the program title to listen to that installment: freshare Ozarks Outdoors podcast.

The plan was to create a new podcast every week following a format of introducing listeners to some of our top stories before a segue into the feature: an interview with someone who has close ties to the Ozarks outdoors.

But the format proved to be an awful lot of work to undertake on a weekly basis for a company our size and with a lot already on our plates. Still, I think podcasts are a great tool to reach a new and different audience, and I do like the idea of introducing some very interesting folks to our listeners. Eventually, we might be able to accomplish the weekly interviews but that would be after we clear some of the other items we have going like the t-shirt site, design work, and promting that site, the fresharestore.

So, I think I will take some middle ground and use a format that includes a brief summary of some of the top stories on freshare, a commercial (to promote the store), and a feature that could include an interview but might be a story, or an outdoors related poem or a description of some new photos added to the freshare gallery. I think this format will ease the pressure of researching, interviewing, cutting and editing tape and producing an extended piece every week. Plus, it will mix things up a little so the podcast doesn't get stale.

That said, I think I'll start in on this week's installment.

Odd Backyard Critters

I'm beginning to wonder if we have some mutations in the animal gene pool around my house. Last Spring, a white dove settled in for a meal of birdseed under one of my feeders. Now, a tailless squirrel and and his stubby-tailed cousin are frequenting the feeders.

By the way they move, it seems both squirrels must have been born without the trademark bushy tails average squirrels sport. Neither seems hampered by balance issues unless trying some quirky move so it makes me think the little guys adapted at an early age.

The tailless guy has the oddest appearance at first glance and it makes you wonder if it's a rat you see streaking across the front lawn. His cousin has a bushy tail, it's just that the thing is very short. Abnormally so.

I have a photo of the white dove, but I have yet to capture an image of the squirrels.

I Resolve

I'm usually not much of one for New Year's resolutions and here is my only one for 2009: I plan to write more. Throughout last year, all my writing appeared only on my Ozarks outdoors website, freshare.net, and on a few article sites. But I have missed blogging and resolve to do more of that in 2009. Here, on Amblin Cafe and for a soon to be developed outdoors blog on freshare.

If you check this blog and Amblin, I'll save you a trip today because the same post you are reading appears on Amblin, too.