A Golden-crowned Sparrow 🪶 #BirdPhotography #GoldenCrownedSparrow #Fujifilm A Gold Crown Sparrow, mostly brown but with a gold stripe on its head, is perched on a bare tree branch, with green vegetation and other branches blurred in the background.

This rainy President’s Day, I’m getting used to the Yawman Arrow Controller by flying patterns in Laminar’s C172. With an XBox controller, I never could fly the C172 well. It really sucked as yaw control was not easy. So far, the Yawman Arrow controller has been terrific #YawmanArrow #XPlane #FlightSimulation #AvGeek

If the sun can keep breaking through the clouds today, we may see some thunderstorms in the northern Sacramento Valley… looking promising for weather nerds #CaWx A backyard with gravel ground cover, leafless shrubs, a few young trees, and a metal garden shed. In the background, there’s a house with a carport. There is also garden equipment scattered around, heavy clouds above suggesting impending rain. Puddles of rain and roofs are bright as sunshine has broken through the clouds.

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.

Near Chico, CA, we just accumulated 2” of rain and this mockingbird has seen quite enough A western mockingbird perched on a vine-under a shelter of a white metal overhang with green vegetation and rain visibly falling in the background.

Local Raley’s grocery has non-alcoholic beer imported from Germany. It’s good as hoped. Malty, which I prefer over hoppy. A hand holding a bottle of Clausthaler Original Non-Alcoholic beer, which contains less than 0.5% alcohol by volume. The label includes the phrases “Superior Taste,” “Crisp & Fresh,” and “The German Pioneer”

Today, finally saw a Spotted Towhee at the Sacramento River National Wildlife Refuge - Pine Creek Unit. I’d only seen California Towhees before and they’re not nearly this fancy looking. A spotted towhee, with unique white markings on its black wings, perched on a bare branch among tangled branches with lichen growth.

A quick storm today for the N. Sacramento Valley. I missed this in the forecast. We’ll actually start drying out for a few days tomorrow. 50°F right now, should get to 60° today. #CaWx

A Doppler radar representation of the North Sacramento Valley. Shows incoming rain just above Orland. From the RadarScope app.

The weather has been so damp that there’s been hardly any good time to prune. Since we’re finally drying out a bit, I went ahead and pruned our cultivated native grapes.  Sunday should be the warmest day, so I will likely prune the fruit trees then.

Turns out a 2023 model year dishwasher is quite the upgrade to a 2003 model year dishwasher. Oh the new possibilities for loading dishes when there is a 3rd rack for flatware! And tines that flatten! And it’s super quiet! 🥳 But will it last 20 years?

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