Food

    Today we made a quick visit to the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge. There’s no missing the White Fronted Geese now and there’s still plenty of dragonflies but there’s no significant population of migratory songbirds yet #SacramentoWildlifeRefuge #BirdWatching #Dragonfly #Fujifilm #SOoC A dragonfly with transparent wings featuring dark patterns rests on a vertical reed, set against a background of dry, intertwined reeds. A large flock of White Fronted geese rests im a wetland area surrounded by water and tall grasses. The landscape includes trees and distant rice hulling silos under a clear blue sky.

    I’ve had Grado SR–125 headphones for almost 20 years now. I’ve neglected them the last ten years. Their second set of L cushions were disintegrating, so I splurged on official G cushions. They’re so good. They fit entirely over my ears instead of sitting along the edges (that made my ears ache pretty fast). #Gradolabs

    In World of Warcraft’s War Within, I have made it to Dornogal. My Druid hasn’t died yet. Not sure if that means I’m badass or that first part of the game is purposefully easy to solo 🤔 Enjoying it so far #WoW

    Asian pears are ready for fresh eating! The yellow ones are New Century and the brown ones are Hosui. Our nectarines were hammered by the heat and recently got bug infested. But we harvested what we could & cooked them down. #HomeOrchard #AsianPears A collection of yellow and brown Asian pears placed in a clear plastic bowl.

    Smoke from thr Park Fire has, for the first time, obviously made it to the surface of the west side of the Sacramento Valley. I can smell it and the Purple sensor reports above 170 AQI #ParkFire #CAWx #AirQuality

    The screenshot displays an air quality index (AQI) reading of 178 for Channel A and 177 for Channel B, alongside a historical graph and various particulate matter measurements. From the My Purple Air iOS app.

    Our avocado tree seems to be producing now. But I won’t bet on any of the fruit making it to maturity sometime between this November and next March. Brutal heat is inbound though we’ve got our shade cloth up to protect the small trees A small, unripe avocado held in a person’s hand, surrounded by green leaves on the tree.

    My spouse took a page from Korean cuisine and made a nice gochujang-based BBQ sauce for tonight’s sweet potato & kale burgers 📷 #MBApr A sweet potato, kale, and bean burger topped with avocado slices and Korean barbecue sauce on a plate.

    I’m going to try participating in micro.blog’s April photo challenge. So each day in April I’ll post one photo based on a word given by micro.blog. I’ve skipped the last few challenges.

    This big espresso toy at Eddie World in Beatty, Nevada, is ridiculously complex! #MBApr An ornate espresso machine made of copper and brass with decorative elements, labeled “Sabre Room,” on top of a brick counter with bottled drinks visible in the background.

    I never appreciated how electric ovens do not exhaust heat like gas ovens. This new oven of ours (with induction cooktop) will be nice during the summer. For the induction, there’s been a learning curve. Mostly that heat is instant and boiling is FAST. Using a pressure cooker is crazy efficient.

    Death Valley Road Trip Part 5

    Most of the second full day at Death Valley! 

    Read More →

    On our induction stove, just a regular silicon mat under heavy cookware is good to protect the surface. EM easily passes through the mat & still direct heats the cookware. Those mats are useful! Baking, candy, and now this. A cast iron skillet on an induction stovetop with a silicone mat underneath and a perforated stainless steel utensil holder at the side.

    I’ve been waiting for this compact flight simulator controller for over a year. I’m pretty excited about it. Made in the USA, which for electronics, isn’t easy! #AvGeek #FlightSim #YawManArrow Orders for the Yawman Arrow begin Jan. 8 – Yawman

    Guten Morgen! Yesterday, after arriving at Frankfurt, Germany, we had lunch with jet-lag friendly alkoholfrei Bier. Today, in an hour, we’re catching a train to Berlin. #TravelPhotography Alcohol free beer in a Paulaner hellis glass. At the top corner within a glass window reflection an aircraft can be seen flying over. There’s a Christmas tree in the reflection too!

    Here’s the turkey that appeared out of a hollow at Point Reyes National Seashore (years ago) and tried to steal our lunch. #Birds 🪶A turkey, showing its side, staring menacingly at the camera. The bird is about waist high and is standing next to a well-worn log. Its beak is bright and sharp.

    This morning, House Finches were breakfasting on ripe elderberries in our backyard. #HouseFinch #BirdsOfMastodon #BirdWatching #Fujifilm Two house finches are on top of two bunches of ripe elderberries, feasting on them. The upper most Finch has a Elderberry in its beak. The lower most finch is on a branch, reaching up into a bunch of berries. 

    It is a few degrees warmer outside but 10% less relative humidity. The whole house fan made it more comfortable in a few minutes & humidity is dropping like a rock in here. Was 60%. I love it.

    Got sick of ArcGIS Pro 3.1’s Export Layout not saving export settings per Layout. So Export settings from one layout end up carrying forward to others especially if you don’t hit the Export Layout button. So made a quick Python script to stop the insanity. Jupyter notebooks are nice. #GIS

    This was one of two batches of mandarins juiced today for this week’s breakfast 😋

    a pile of halved mandarins, cut side up, on a red cutting board.

    Almost done making the caramel. Just needs to hit 250°F

    a candy thermometer in a 4 qt sauce pan of almost done caramel colored caramel. At about 230°F

    I’m going to make caramel today. Alton Brown’s Dark Caramel recipe never fails. Though I prefer a little less dark so I cut the highest temp from 350 to 340°F and then the final temp to 250°F (makes them a tad softer).

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