beautifully done setup

I've run across this when living rural. Snakes would go looking for warmth or prey, climb in through gaps around pipes-HVAC-outlets, and become cat toys. Plugging the gaps took care of it. That also cut back on mice and bugs coming in, too.

It's like they have little racing stripes!

I've been using those stripes to distinguish some individual jays at my feeders.

In a different state, I was getting them free from the local Extension Service. Similar end-of-season donations but not as many packets. I used them to start seedlings to donate to the community garden.

This might not apply in your area, but I've found some great seed stashes at the local Habitat ReStore. The consignors who do those huge seed racks in the big box stores donated hundreds of unsold packets at EOY. They were 25-50c each.

Every Keter resin planter I've ever had has developed leaks from the drain.
(left image) Drain sealed shut with silicon cement and new overflow-level hole drilled
(right image) Once the drain clogged and the planter filled up with water. The bowing out warp is still visible years later.

Yep! The planter and the dirt cost about a month's worth of cable + streaming, though. At least that's a one-time expense.
Planter is still going after many years, although like every Keter I've had the drainplug leaked within months.

Thank you! It became an annual tradition once I figured out the right setup. I still have several of those huge planters and hope to do it again next summer. *IF* there is a spot in my current yard that gets sufficient sun and things warm up soon enough. PNW gardening challenges :)

Anna's are basically year-round now in the Puget Trough given the combo of humans putting out feeders and relatively mild winters.

It still floors me how Washington goes from Zone 5 mountains to Zone 8B/9A in, like, 30 miles.

I've done a fair share of internal fraud investigations. It's jaw-dropping how much little stuff was shaved by people with high-5-figure incomes. If you're going to risk your career, make it worth something. Like the $40k/year auditor who did > 250k in fake refunds and chargeback approvals.

Martha Stewart was worth hundreds of millions, went to prison for $45,000. That's the loss she avoided by selling $230,000 stock ahead of bad news, based on the insider tip from her Merrill Lynch broker.

Impressive attention to detail and micromanagement there. Unethical, but wow.

Eerily, not errily. Dammit.

Started posting before caffiene.

ikr?

Wish I'd gotten recordings of mine singing way back when. Even more errily accurate than these males. They aren't mimics but I wonder if hearing it all the time influenced their song a bit.

Then you'll get why the first time I heard my spice finch male sing, I had a WTF-is-happening-modem-possessed? moment: (may need to turn up sound they are fairly soft singers)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=2I8S...

(I assumed #9 didn't have to be in public)
And I use maps today on occasion. Frees me from worries about connectivity or having to pull over to refresh the phone and read off tiny screen. Same reasoning behind printing the boarding pass QR code and directions to the hotel & client offices. #oldfart