A lot of you ,who follow along on my gardening, chicken chasing, rabbit raising, kid wrangling adventures, here on my blog might have noticed that I recently started putting it all on video. I am a visual person, so while I enjoy a good story, when I want to know how to do something, I want to see it done. I really like seeing other homesteads. It always gives me good ideas on what I can do with my own quirky life.
So I started making videos and uncovered a hidden talent my princess(we call her the princess because she is the only girl with 4 brothers) had of filming and editing! She is a filming editing ROCK STAR! When she is filming she totally anticipates my every move and yet transitions S-L-O-W-L-Y into the next thing as to not make the viewer dizzy! She got the editing software down in one afternoon! She adds music, text and bloopers at the flick of a finger. Most of the music she even plays herself on the piano!
So we started the journey of capturing our adventures on film. While we enjoyed it, I didn’t want to do it for free, forever. For one thing we would love to afford to buy an actual camera instead of using my iphone! We were working towards the goal You tube had set of 10,000 views and 100 subscribers to be able to monetize our channel in the form of advertisements. Last week we met our goal! Thank you, all of you that watched and subscribed and gave a thumbs up to our videos! Thank you for all your encouraging comments! I never dreamed of finding such an encouraging audience of people following along on our crazy homesteading life. THANK YOU, THANK YOU , THANK YOU!
Here comes the gut punch….. When I signed into you tube last night, after our little; yay, we actually got 10,000 views celebration, to sign up for monetizing our channel….
YOU TUBE HAD “RAISED THE BAR”
Instead of 10,000 views, now we need 4,000 watch hours in the last 12 months. WE HAVE 17. Yes, it has taken us a year of working our butts off to get 17 watch hours! Taking in consideration that the average attention span for watching a video now days is 2 minutes and 42 seconds, that is not surprising.
Instead of 100 subscribers, now we are required to have 1,000. I had to sit back and let that sink in for a few minutes and then, to be frank, a string of words that I cannot repeat here, came out of my mouth. I picked myself up out of the mud and took a deep cleansing breath. Then I cussed some more. What the hell, the kids were all tucked into bed, so I had the freedom to throw an adult sized tantrum if I wanted to! I am not sure what the future holds for more videos. This “new raised bar” seems a little too high for us here at Bloom Where You’re Planted and yet I DO NOT GIVE UP EASILY! I will talk to my Father and do whatever he says I should do.
Meanwhile as all this was happening… outside it was raining and raining and raining and raining. We were slogging through the muck and the mire of homesteading trying to keep the animals dry and their food dry. In the midst of all this MUCK(trying to be pg here) we came up with this video, which very well might be our last. Not surprising, it is not the most upbeat video we have ever done. Link to video: https://youtu.be/UOeKQMDLllQ
If you have found these videos helpful or inspiring, now would be a good time to leave a comment telling us so. Thank you, again for everyone’s support and encouragement. It means a lot to us! Blessings, Dash
If she has the knack, you might as well keep going. Allow her to bloom where she’s planted. Who knows where her road will lead, but no one can take the experience she gains away from her.
SO, SO sorry you are having to face this! Certainly doesn’t seem fair to me!!! Best wishes!!!
Gosh, I am so sorry to hear that! It seems that YouTube has been terrible to everybody lately, especially the homesteading set (well, I guess that’s all I watch, lol, so not much comparison). If your daughter is truly enjoying most of the process though, I’d say “keep doing it!” It’s a great learning experience, and who knows how she’ll end up using that talent. God bless as you try to sort it out!
I encourage you to continue your videos. I know it looks like a mountain, but you’ve come so far. The future is video, and money can be made. We must dig in the dirt to harvest our bounty. I’ve watched your videos ‘here and there’ and really enjoyed them! I didn’t know your quest was for this. Now I will go to subscribe and watch every video twice. How’s that for ‘watch hours’?! Let us know what we can do and promote your you tube, we can make this happen together. I hope you go for it! Good luck! I hope this blog post makes it on the ‘featured post’ of your email blast so to reach more readers and turn them into viewers. 🙂
Dash, you know that david and I thoroughly enjoy Watching your videos and stories. By the way how is our mother hen doing. Grannyrain
Hi, you guys,
Thank you for your kind words! It has been fun visiting with you about farm stuff! The eggs never hatched. I finally let Dottie out with the other girls. We cracked open the eggs just to see. O.K. I have a VERY strong stomach, but that was gross. Now I know what a rotten egg smells like! Love you!
Thank you Nicole for your kind words and encouragement. I have been blown away by the support from my online peeps!
It seems a lot of people are unhappy with You Tube just now. I guess it is kind of a monopoly and that never works out. People have given me some other ideas. Maybe I need to go with those just to give them some healthy competition! Thank you for your encouragement. My sweet girl is so cute when she edits. She insists that I stay under a certain time limit and keep things moving. The only reason I got to keep this video so long is that I edited it myself;)
Thank you, Linda. Other homesteaders have given me some other avenues to go down. Maybe we need to give you tube some competition! Blessings, Dash
Thank you for your encouragement. You are right. She really does have a talent with it all.
I am blessed to have her help and she works for ice cream;)
Blessings, Dash
I hope you decided to keep going. I love that you are in Texas (so am I) and that this is an urban setting (so am I). And that you have a front yard garden Dallas (so beautiful).
Hi Joan, I did decide to keep going! Thank you for your encouragement! You are why I keep going! Where are you urban gardening?