First off, I need to explain why I have, apparently abandoned my WordPress blog with its 
Life off the blockchain has been rather busy over the last few months, some of which ironically coincided with the most recent hardfork. I have been posting much less frequently, but have tried to do so at least once a week. In addition to the reduction in frequency, my posts have been longer reads and have taken much,much more time to prepare.
I am not one for contests - I keep on saying - but have, ironically, participated in more of them on the blockchain than in my entire life.
Not because I will win a prize (that has occasionally happened) but either because the topic resonates and inspires me to write or, as in this case, makes me think a little more critically about what I am doing on Steemit and in my blogging life, in general.
I did not formally participate in SPUD 7, but I did power up on 1 November. For the rest of the month I followed 
Getting back to my musings, and when I started SPUDding, my goal was to reach 1,000 Steem which I acheived in SPUD 5. Since then, I've delegated some SP to 
I've noticed that the longer posts, following HF21/22, have yielded much better returns than before. What I did not do for the graphic below, was analyse the frequency of post in any detail. You will have to take my word for it (or look for yourself) that prior to the hardfork, I was posting as often as three or four times a week. During April participated in 
often a lot. Sometimes I have nothing to say and the post gets a vote (of a value I determine). Of course, like everyone in a social network, I follow and engage with my blogpals - just for fun.
Oh, and one other thing: I did sign up for a couple of curation trails and two things happened: I discovered I was upvoting not just the account I wanted to upvote and a couple of gazillion accounts posts I wouldn't have upvoted, and I was upvoting myself, none of which rested well with me. My curation is manual. Very manual.
So, without further ado, here is a chart of what I have powered up on my account over the last five months:
As I've already said, for this month, I've powered up just under 62 Steem. Had I not formally participated in this month's Top 3 contest, I'd have powered up another 20. This liquid Steem went to paying the entry fee and into the prize pool and therefore also stays in the big Steem(y) pond.
I admit to being quite happy with the growth in my account given that other than the income from the small amount leased, 90% of the growth is what I refer to as sweat equity - posts I've taken time to craft and which people read and upvote. I am grateful to each and every account that does, and to those who stop by and leave thoughtful comments. These are all reasons for hanging around on Steemit. And the belief that crypto currencies and Steem, in particular, is a good investment. My time, at the moment, is the only currency I have to invest. All the fiat I earn goes into paying the bills and as you see in the photograph, finding water so that we can make our garden work (and feed us) again.
@gmuxx, with fees paid in crypto currency: Steem Based Dollars. If you want more information, join the Steemblogs Club on Discord
