Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy

We have a lot of gates here on Blue Rose Farm. There are gates to the horse paddocks. There are gates to the veggie garden. And there’s a big gate across the driveway, keeping the ponies from taking an amble down the road. That gate also keeps delivery trucks from racing down the driveway and spooking ponies, dogs, or people. It gives us control over who comes onto the property.

A privacy policy is like a gate for a website. It protects your privacy. I value my privacy and I value yours. I want this privacy policy gate to protect both of us. But a gate can’t be closed all the time. You need to open it in order to make contact with other people. The trick is to know when to open it and when to shut it.

On the farm, the farm dogs keep an eye on everything. When deer or coyotes come onto the property, the dogs chase them away, barking and telling the intruders “Go away! We protect this farm!” A website needs that kind of protection. On this website, I use the spam blocker Cleantalk to patrol the fences and keep the varmints out. I also use Wordfence to ensure that the fences stay strong.

Newsletters

But I don’t want to hide behind those fences all the time. On the farm, I plant flowers out by the road for the folks who pass by because I want to connect with people. On this website, I use a newsletter to make that connection. In order to send that newsletter out, I need your email address. I am not going to be emailing you often. I don’t have the time to do that. After all, there’s a lot of work to do around here. This morning I picked two boxes of plums that have to be canned or frozen or dried in the next day or so.  Most days are like that – always something that needs to get done. Between tasks and most likely, between one crisis and another, I will send out a newsletter.  If you don’t want the newsletter, you can always unsubscribe. Just hit that button at the bottom of the newsletter. My feelings won’t be hurt. You choose what works for you.

Comments

I love to chat with folks. Often times, I’m leaning on the fence, visiting with neighbors who are walking their dogs down the road. Now you and I can’t visit like that, but you can leave comments and we can have a little chat here in cyberspace. Please do give me time to reply, I live in farm space and I’ve discovered that most electronic devices don’t do well when they are dropped in water troughs or squished in the mud or crunched by a horse’s hoof. I check in with the internet after work is done outside, my devices last longer that way.

Now, I do like talking to folks, but I don’t like spam. That’s where Cleantalk comes in. It blocks the bots from leaving comments and makes sure that only real humans are communicating. Conversations with bots are rather boring and I don’t want that on this site. Remember that the comments you make are public and don’t write anything you wouldn’t want your mother to read…

And if you ever want me to remove you or your comments from my website, please email me and I will take care of that.

Cookies

We use a lot of cookies here on the farm. I probably have some cookies in my pocket right now. Wait a minute, I’ll check. Yep, I have cookies for the dogs and cookies for the horses. Cookies make things go smoothly around here. The ponies know they will get a treat when I put their halters on out in the field and the dogs know that they will get a treat when I call them in from the far end of the back pasture. Those little cookies encourage a horse to settle and a dog to come running.

Cookies on a computer also make things run smoothly. A cookie is a small text file that is placed on your hard drive by a web page server. Cookies make a web site run better on your machine. They simplify site navigation and the delivery of content. You can accept or decline cookies. This website might not run as well and it might load slowly without cookies, just as a pony might toss its head and refuse to be haltered or a dog might linger in the far field, happily sniffing the bushes and ignoring my whistles.

Website Activity Tracking

We keep track of a lot of different things here on the farm. Going into winter, we make sure that the ponies have enough hay and enough bedding. Coming into spring we are always checking our seed supply. Is the corn seed still good? Do we have pumpkin seed? Keeping track of these things means that we have what we need, when we need it. And by keeping track, we can plan for how to improve gardens and pony life and everything else. I use Google Analytics to do the same thing on this website. I can see how many people are visiting and what they do when they are here. This information helps me improve the website, to make it a place that you enjoy coming to visit.