This week, we’ve got a couple of intriguing blog posts coming up that deal with bloggers’ personal stories.

Obviously, personal stories tend to do well with blog readers. But look around, and you’ll see that personal stories have become a mainstay of the media more generally.

Personal stories are big

We have reality t.v.—real stories about real people (admittedly in some pretty outlandish situations!). We have the social media explosion, where anyone and everyone has the opportunity to “go viral” and enjoy their fifteen minutes of fame. We even have a whole generation of people who are reputedly more self-assured—and self—promoting—than ever before.

Personal stories are big—and not just online, or among bloggers. So if you’re yet to experiment with the power of personal on your blog, now’s the time to commit to it across the board.

But blogging is inherently personal, right?

Blogging might have started as online journaling, but I think we’d probably all agree that it’s come a long way since then.

If you’re blogging as an employee for a company, you may not consider what you do to be very personal. If you’re running a news-style blog, you may feel that your job is to report facts objectively, not tell stories.

So, depending on the kind of blog you run, you may find it difficult to inject a personal element into what you do.

Personal isn’t always about you

What if you are writing blog posts for a corporation? Or what if you’re just shy about revealing too much of yourself?

How can you get personal without making it about you?

Simple: put the personal focus onto others:

• Your readers and commenters: by doing regular Q&A posts, highlighting their contributions to your blog and niche, and so on. Even a reader poll can produce information for a post that really resonates with readers and generates discussion.
• Industry leaders: quoting them is a good start, but why not interview them yourself, add commentary or opinion on their comments, and include publicly usable photos and videos of them? As a first step in this direction, you could simply include the photos and bios of guest posters and contributing authors to your blog. They’re industry experts too—we hope!
• Those you’re connected to: whether they’re family, friends, industry contacts, colleagues, or social media connections, relating the stories, experiences, and perspectives of those around you can give a really personal feel to a post. As an unusual example, I really love how Heather Armstrong does this with her daily photo posts of her dog Chuck.

Personality-rich post formats

Personal posts don’t just have to revolve around topics—certain post formats seem to do a lot to help us create a personal connection.

Here are a few of my favorites:

• The personality roundup: A roundup of personalities within your niche—with images and links—is a great way to give a human feel to any blog.
• The interview: I mentioned this above, but your interview could use video and audio too—and be the better for it.
• The image post: Images do speak a thousand words. The great thing about them is that a good image will elicit emotions from your readers, so often you can say less about yourself and more about your niche—and still create that personal connection.
• The irreverent post: Reporting the facts in chatty language is another good way to create a personal feel—provided it fits with the tone and thrust of your blog.

Are you using the power of personal?

Are you confidently creating a sense of personal connection through your blog, or is it something you struggle with? what techniques do you use? Share your tips and advice with us in the comments.

I have a large property and can’t afford to fence the entire area, which includes many ornamental shrubs and perennials. What are the most effective deer repellents? 

We empathize. For a gardener, few things are more frustrating than discovering headless stems the very morning you expect to see full blooms. Even “deer-resistant” plants are sometimes good eats to a hungry deer. No repellent, commercial or homemade, can provide 100 percent protection, but some do work better than others.

After surveying 22 earlier studies of deer repellents and then conducting their own controlled study at two different locations, researchers at Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station concluded that egg-based repellents worked better than predator urines and blood-based products. Repellents applied more often were more effective than those applied less frequently.

“The sulfurous smell given off by the putrefied egg mimics the smell of rotting meat, giving deer the impression there is a predator in the vicinity,” says Scott Williams, an assistant scientist for the Connecticut Department of Forestry and Horticulture and co-author of the study. “The smell also mimics the scent of urine from a predator who would have likely feasted on another animal. This is the theory behind the use of eggs in all these repellents.” The odor diminishes for humans soon after application, but it lingers for deer, which have a superior sense of smell.

Of the 10 commercial deer repellents tested in the Connecticut study, Bobbex (fish meal, hot pepper, putrid eggs, dried blood, wintergreen oil and more) performed best, achieving 93 percent protection compared with the 100 percent protection of a fence. Soap-based Hinder was the runner-up, with 83 percent protection. Both products were applied every two weeks according to label directions. Hinder, though a little less effective, was less expensive and easier to use.

“When selecting a repellent, consider how much damage you are getting, how much you are willing to spend to control it, and how willing you are to follow the treatment schedule,” Williams says.

What about noncommercial repellents — things such as soap bars, human hair or human urine? “For areas receiving only light deer damage, they can be worth trying, but they generally are less effective,” Williams says. “One home remedy involves mixing four or five eggs and 4 tablespoons hot pepper sauce with a gallon of water, and applying it with a sprayer.” Plan to reapply every 10 to 14 days.

“Whatever measure you take, I recommend rotating several different treatments, because deer habituate quickly — it helps to keep them on their toes,” Williams says. “For heavy deer pressure, only a fence will work.”

If the article in the last issue of MOTHER EARTH NEWS didn’t convince you that a skylight window is a great choice for a low-cost remodeling project (see MOTHER NO. 103, pages 38 to 40, January/February 1987), perhaps this follow-up will. Why? Because we’ll show you how to save up to half the cost of the job by doing the installation yourself. (See the skylight diagrams in the image gallery.)

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Install Your Own Skylight Window

If you’ve never tackled anything like this before, it’ll offer a mildly challenging, but very rewarding, learning experience. And even if you’ve done a fair amount of home carpentry, installing a skylight window will present an opportunity to hone your skills on a fresh technique. Either way, you’ll have something worthwhile to show for your effort.

Plan Not, Pain Later

Let’s assume you have a pretty good idea of where you want to put your skylight window and you’re ready to price the model you have in mind. Don’t run out the door and plunk your money down. Instead, climb into the attic with a tape measure and find out exactly what will fit in the area that’s captured your imagination. Naturally, if your installation is to be in a cathedral ceiling-one in which the roof and interior ceiling sandwich the structural rafters-your job will be somewhat easier because you won’t need to build a well to penetrate an attic space.

Measure the depth of the roof rafters and the distance they’re spaced apart. Most likely, you’ll have either 2 by 4s placed 16 inches on center or 2 by 6s set at 24 inch intervals. Check the area for wiring, plumbing vents, and other fixtures, and be prepared to reroute or move them if you have to. Also, look for structural interference: horizontal collar ties or vertical posts that support rafters and joists, or in the case of trussed roofs, braces and struts that share the roof load. With the former, you can usually work around the components or reposition them. Trusses are less forgiving and will probably require the advice of a structural engineer or the building inspector.

Most skylights are designed to fit standard rafter spacings and come in lengths varying from 2 feet to 6 feet. It’s usually best to cut through no more than one rafter, so consider buying the narrowest skylight that will fit between three rafters and making up the area difference in length. When a rafter is cut, it’s standard procedure to support the loose ends with headers, or boards fastened between adjacent rafters. Doubling up headers is common practice, but with the largest skylights, you may have to double the rafters as well. If you can’t tie in to the ridge at the peak of the roof and the top plate of the wall below, merely “scabbing on” to the outside of the rafters with two-by’s twice the length of the skylight opening will help stiffen the structural members.

I’ve never seen it like this in the 30+ years living in southwest Missouri.  The entire month of July has just passed without a trace of rain, and highs most days were above 100 degrees.  Fire danger is extreme.  It would be even higher if any grass were actually growing in our yard.  Pastures and hay fields have withered, and many have been grazed to the ground and turned to dust.  People are already comparing this to the dust bowl days of the 1930s, though it is too early to tell whether this weather is just a fluke or part of a larger trend. 

Water has been an issue for years, but never as bad as this year.  Even filling the washing machine at a trickle runs our well dry before it can run a single load.  Becky had been doing a triage, trying to save her favorite plants, but there just isn’t enough water so they, too, are withered.  Missouri is a “raparian rights” state, which means if you can drill down deep enough, the water is yours.  This makes it an ideal location for the poultry industry.  Just five miles from us, a Moark egg complex sucks over 250,000 gallons per day from the water table. 

I am putting my portable sawmill to use, building a bath house that will store gray water for irrigation, and a rain water collection system, just in case any actually falls.  We’re going to try to get everything we can out of every drop of water. And, at the risk of providing too much information, we are setting up a composting toilet. 

I’ve hired a local construction crew to build the bath house, and this is their first time both with post and beam construction and working around a sawmill.  While I’ve got a ways to go to get them up to speed on post & beam, they warmed right up to the idea of the sawmill.  I’m pretty much cutting as they put the boards up.  Although I normally run the mill solo, they are so enthusiastic, I let them help out.  In a few hours, they were running the mill under my supervision.  As we took a load of boards to the building site, one of them exclaimed that it took less time to mill the boards than it would have taken to drive into town and buy them.  Of course the log was already on the mill ready to cut when he started.  Sometimes it takes more time to cut the tree down and get it to the mill than it takes to saw it.  But it sure got their attention, and they are eager work in exchange for milling lumber for their own projects. 

We have plenty of trees to mill.  On our tree farm we have lost dozens of trees to drought and red oak borer, a non-invasive beetle that has been part of the local ecosystem for thousands of years.  Usually, the borer only affects trees that are already stressed due to drought or old age.  Salvaging these trees is a challenge, since the dead trees are scattered throughout the woods. 

Whether this weather is a fluke or part of a bigger trend, it is forcing us to re-think our use of water.  The simple solution is drill our well a couple hundred feet deeper to tap into a larger aquifer.  Even if we do, there is no guarantee the growing population of people—and chickens—won’t eventually draw that resource down below our reach, as well.  I’ll blog a final design and updates on how the graywater/rainwater system is working.  I’d certainly welcome comments about how other people are getting along in dry areas, and water conservation measures they have found useful.

The number of homeowners who owe more in their mortgages than they are worth fell by 5.8 percent in the first quarter and nearly a full point from a year ago as rising values pushed nearly three quarters of a million homeowners into the black in the first quarter, and today the total may exceed one million.

Owners’ equity has gained sharply, according to Federal Reserve data reported Friday by HUD in its monthly Housing Scoreboard.  Home equity rose by $457.1 billion in the first quarter of 2012, a 7.4 percent increase from the previous quarter and its highest level since the second quarter of 2010, the height of price increases stimulated by the federal homebuyer tax credits in the second quarter of 2010.

The government data confirmed last month’s report from CoreLogic that the number homeowners underwater in the first quarter fell to 11.4 million, down from 12.1 million in last quarter of 2011.  CoreLogic reported that only 23.7 percent, of all homeowners with a mortgage were in negative equity compared to 25.2 percent, in the fourth quarter of 2011.

The first quarter negative equity share is lower than it has been since CoreLogic began reporting it in third quarter of 2009, which was nine months before the peak of the tax credits.  The actually number of underwater borrowers is now within 200,000 of the level in late 2009, 11.1 million owners.

“In the first quarter of 2012, rebounding home prices, a healthier balance of real estate supply and demand, and a slowing share of distressed sales activity helped to reduce the negative equity share,” said Mark Fleming, chief economist for CoreLogic. “This is a meaningful improvement that is driven by quickly improving outlooks in some of the hardest hit markets. While the overall stagnating economic recovery will likely slow housing market recovery in the second half of this year, reducing the number of households is an important step toward reducing future mortgage default risk.”

Since the housing crash in 2006, record negative equity rates have frozen millions in their homes, making it difficult to sell or refinance and forcing those suffering financial reversals into foreclosure.  Negative equity has played a major role in the current low inventory levels, preventing owners from selling their homes to take advantage of improving market conditions.  Loss of equity has crippled net worth and curtailed retirement plans.  Homes made up 47.6 percent of the total non-financial assets held by Americans in 2009 and household net worth declined 40 percent from 2007 to 2010 due to a decline housing prices.

Since the end of the first quarter, prices increases have continued, pushing even more homeowners into the black.  All national prices indices have continued to rise, including Case-Shiller, which has reported increases in April and May.  According to CoreLogic, some 1.9 million of the 11.4 million borrowers underwater in the first quarter were within five percent of reaching positive equity.