You should put your money where your mouth is. Sometimes literally. Penzeys Spices is a good company that has been brazenly rejecting the magats running our country. They're a little more expensive and we have to have them shipped to us, but from now on our spice cabinet is a Penzey first zone. It also helps that the spices are actually great too. You can taste the difference when you use them.
I got my pin for 15 years of service working for Metro, all of them with JIS. Hard to believe its been that long. Time does fly.
After a little over ten years Mari decided it was time for the Honda Accord to go. She went and picked out this 2025 Toyota Rav 4 Hybrid Limited and it's a beaut inside and out. We ended up naming the Accord Isabeau, Izy for short, after the character in Ladyhawke. The Rav is yet to be named.
Just yesterday I posted a pic of the female downy woodpecker from the bird cam thinking it might be the only one I ever got. Well lightning struck twice and I learned a lesson as today we got what is my favorite snap taken by the cam feeder so far. This amazing profile of the female downy woodpecker. Also she is clearly eating a sunflower seed, so obviously they eat more than just suet!
This is a real treat. This is one of my favorite birds, the downy woodpecker. You can tell this is a female because the male has a bright red patch on the back of his head. I didn't expect to get any pictures of the downy because the kind of food this feeder takes is not what they eat, we have that in a suet feeder elsewhere. So this lady must have just been using the cam feeder as a perch for a minute. Very exciting! Well, to me at least.
See Male Tufted Titmouse entry. Add shrug emoji with a question mark.
This is a Tufted Titmouse. A pretty little bird that is sexually monomorphic. What does that mean? Well unlike the other birds where the male is bright and female brown, or like blue jays with subtle differences between the sexes, the Titmouse male and female look identical and are exactly the same size. So good luck telling them apart. Therefor I am openly admitting to cheating on this one. I choose this as an example of a male. It's my blog, I can do that.
In 2019 on a trip to Ireland Dad and I took this picture.
Well in honor of Saint Patrick's Day, we decided to do a little recreation.
What do you think?
Kingdom Come Deliverance came out in 2018 but I passed on it. It got mixed reviews for being a bit buggy and the combat being janky. Then Kingdom Come Deliverance II was released just a bit ago and is getting rave reviews. So now that I want to play the sequel I figured I should go back and play the original. And, yep the reviews were right. I ran into several bugs and the combat is very clunky, but the story was also really good and I had fun so that's what it's all about!
Dad traded in the ol' 2010 minivan for this slightly used 2022 CR-V EXL. It's even nicer in person, I think a great choice.
The male and female starling look almost exactly alike, the only way to tell is a small detail on the beak. If you compare this one to my other post you will notice where the yellow bit ends the beak its darker and blueish. Whereas on the female its lighter and more pinkish. Nothing you'd probably be able to see without one staying still on camera.
Here we have the female Starling. They're an invasive species to the US, so despite being pretty we are not a fan. Birders label them a "nuisance bird" and we call them bully birds since they come in swarms, muscle out all the others and eat up all the food. Whenever we can we chase them off. Of course the cowbird is also considered a nuisance bird since it does kind of the same thing, but we give them more of a pass since they actually belong here. Not the starling's fault of course, they're just doing what nature tells 'em to, but in large enough numbers they can cause real harm to other bird species, as invasive animals are wont to do. In some places there are bounties on them for that reason.
It was fun to stand around the fire, talk and enjoy the heat. We'll definitely have to break this bad boy out more often!
With just a little kindling the fire got quite big and very hot, plus the "smokeless" part worked as advertised.
I'm ashamed to admit after Dad got us this awesome fire pit, it sat being used as a table for over a year. Well, no longer! It's cold and clear tonight, so we're gonna fire it up!
