{"id":803,"date":"2010-02-07T07:18:53","date_gmt":"2010-02-07T14:18:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.remarc.com\/craig\/?p=803"},"modified":"2010-02-07T07:18:53","modified_gmt":"2010-02-07T14:18:53","slug":"like-legos-for-gardeners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ellishollow.remarc.com\/?p=803","title":{"rendered":"Like Legos for gardeners"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"my<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\tI got a call out from Susan over at GardenRant<\/a> to help explain the appeal of Farmville.\u00c2\u00a0 Here’s the comment I left.\u00c2\u00a0 (Click on the image at right for a larger view of my ‘farm’.)<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0If the Facebook clutter bothers you, you can block Farmville and other Facebook games<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

What’s the attraction? I liked playing with Legos as a kid. So for me, Farmville is kind of like online Legos for gardeners.<\/p>\n

Lord knows the lines in my real garden will never be that straight, nor will the color of my bulbs match the color of my trees. But I can make that happen in Farmville.<\/p>\n

I also play along with some family members. We have a little friendly competition going. Some folks I know are more into the social aspects, and have struck up friendships with people around the world who they met through Farmville. (I can always use more neighbors. Friend me.)<\/p>\n

I harvest my crops and manage my ‘farm’ while I watch the news at night. It beats the heck out playing solitaire, keeps me off the streets and out of trouble, and provides a little distraction and diversion to get me through the winter.<\/p>\n

A educator friend of mine lamented the other day, “I do wish kids could actually learn something about farming by playing Farmville.”<\/p>\n

That’s a legitimate complaint. But it would probably make the game way too complicated to have mass appeal. Play SimFarm (if that’s still around) if that’s what you’re looking for.<\/p>\n

But one thing the game does teach is delayed gratification — which is probably one of the most important traits to foster in future gardeners. You plant crops but have to wait hours or days to harvest them. You visit well-developed farms of your ‘neighbors’ and know that you can gradually build your farm to their level if you’re persistent.<\/p>\n

The game can also be a creative outlet. Sure, most of the farms are pretty boring. But some folks arrange their farms to form quilt patterns or create 3-D effects.<\/p>\n

I’ll add a picture of my farm<\/a> over at Ellis Hollow later this morning (it’s been neglected lately) if you’re curious.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I got a call out from Susan over at GardenRant to help explain the appeal of Farmville.\u00c2\u00a0 Here’s the comment I left.\u00c2\u00a0 (Click on the image at right for a larger view of my ‘farm’.) \u00c2\u00a0If the Facebook clutter bothers you, you can block Farmville and other Facebook games. What’s the attraction? I liked playing … Continue reading “Like Legos for gardeners”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-meta"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ellishollow.remarc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ellishollow.remarc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ellishollow.remarc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ellishollow.remarc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ellishollow.remarc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ellishollow.remarc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ellishollow.remarc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ellishollow.remarc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ellishollow.remarc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}