Human names elude me.  Without really trying, I can rattle off the scientific names of hundreds of plants, tell you their lineage, their uses, where they like to grow.  But present me with a few people, and they blur together into a sea of faces.

I can just hear what you want to say --- "I have a hard time with names too."  Let me clarify with a short story.  When I was a freshman in college, a girl sat at my table every day, but for weeks (months? maybe even the whole first semester?) I didn't know who she was and I mostly ignored her.  Then, one day, she brought a potted heather plant to lunch with her.  "Nice plant," I said.  "Yes, it's a heather, just like my name," she replied.  A light went off in my head --- this girl's name was Heather, which was a plant, so I could remember her!  Now, to use modern parlance, we are BFFs.

I've been thoroughly enjoying everyone's insightful comments, especially over the last few weeks, but it bothers me that I have a hard time remembering which one of you is the pig farmer and which one lives on the prairie.  I considered asking you all to rename yourselves after plants, but then I came up with an even better solution!  Anyone who wants can now create an account on Walden Effect.  This will make it easier for you since your comments will post immediately (rather than waiting for me to check in and mark them as non-spam.)  You'll also be able to create your own user page, with links to your main webpages, maybe a photo of yourself, and hopefully at least one reference to a plant or animal to jog my memory.

I hope you'll give it a try!  Just click here and follow the directions to make your account and user page.  If you run into any problems, just email me and I'll make them better.  You might also want to read about all of the registered users on Walden Effect.

Don't want to share?  That's okay --- you can still post comments anonymously or by typing in your name just the way you always could.  Either way, I look forward to learning more about you!

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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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