Entropy Generator

FAWMStock was wonderful. Thank you @fawmchallenge.bsky.social Touching grass with new friends was good for the soul and the creativity.

Loper Blight bites again

A pissed off belted kingfisher doing low-level flyby in full bore screaming kakkakkakkakkakkakkak mode is a thing to experience. ... but add in the Doppler effect you get an OMG WHAT?!?! level of special sauce on top. So happy to be where I am, near live water.

Am hearing more rolling thunder this morning than the last few years combined. Yay rain in July! I can't stress enough how frickin' surreal the rarity of Sound storms is to someone who grew up in the US South or Midwest. It's like, do you even wx, bro? #homesick #wawx

Few things as cutely silly as a clumsy fledgling jumping and climbing around a birdbath in pursuit of a moth. Junior hasn't figured out standing water: he lifts one foot, shakes it off, puts it back down in the water and lifts the other and shakes. Then sees moth go by and tries again to catch it.

"and turn in your priest card" Probation is 1-3 years

Sort of surreal looking at the beach, currently packed with people shellfishing and wandering around. And unfortunately, chasing off the shorebirds that usually would be foraging in the exposed flats and eelgrass beds.

This morning's super-low tide coupled with a fairly high high means the incoming tide swing will be over 16 feet. In under 8 hours. Commencement Bay (Tacoma) -

Juvenile song sparrows, dark-eyed juncos, chestnut-backed AND black-capped chickadees, and downy woodpeckers have been learning about the feeding stations today. And a pod of orca passed by. Clear, sunny, and I got garden work done. woohoo!

I've said this before, but with the legal shenanigans continuing it bears saying again: PLEASE link to the filing or docket. There is a special place in Heaven for People who Link to the Filing. You'll be rubbing elbows with that most exalted group, People Who Return Canning Jars.

Poe's Output wins ... My aidar failed to catch that a post was a parody of Claude output and not the real thing. #aidar

die die DIE, "Daily Passport", which just suddenly out of the blue started spamming me daily. Shady "subscriber" count manipulation? Data collection or malware delivery via Unsubscribe links? Not verifying addresses entered in a Subscribe box? Blacklist, block, report - my go-tos. #vent

"You can make me perch in the perfect spot, in perfect light, but you can't make me pose. Nope. Not gonna pose. Why would I look left anyhow? That's not where the fish are." #neverworkwithkidsoranimals #birding #pnwbirds 🪶

Now that a few hundred yards of bindweed root have been cleared out of another strip of shoulder, time to toss showy milkweed and Agastache urticifolia seeds and such there. Would be nice if I got paid or even reimbursed for this *grump* 🌱 Behold, < 10% of what I pulled:

Shades of "I'll have you know that I golf with Ben Hill himself!" from the earlier days of Home Depot.

Yay! Got permission to remove the poison hemlock growing on the shoulder of a VRBO/AirBnB house's lot. Just in time because it's starting to bloom. Boo! It's going to be just me. No help from owner. After all, the county mows the shoulder in fall that's their job, right? *headdesk* #pnwgarden 🌱

what the fuck, captcha?

Shame I couldn't stop for photos: pea-sized hail piled up along Canyon Rd from north of 512 to 72nd (Summit View to Waller), looking like light snow on roofs and lawns.. a spattering here and there on Bentley Rd. Nothing like the south or midwest gets but definitely unusual to see here #wawx

A fun show, I hope they don't ruin those great memories - www.openculture.com/2026/05/near...

One of the ospreys has decided to get serious about territory defense. No idea of the nest location or which is the mate, but he's busy yelping and chasing and it's nice for once to see ospreys just running away from each other instead of running away from the bald eagles going after their fish.

#rant - sites that don't honor no-tracking cookies, fingerprint your system so even clearing all data between visits and using a different browser, a visit a month later triggers email spam within minutes. Happened twice this week with a vendor now blacklisted.

Bummer. This was growing strongly but the leaves were blackening rapidly. Whatever killed it off last year was back. Diseased = into the trash. The pot broke while extracting the plant so it got trashed too. Glad I kept it isolated. Fingers crossed the Chelonia purchased in February stays healthy.

Need a recommendation for a 50%-shade understory plant (Seattle area) that can handle occasional root disturbance when I pull new bindweed + ivy sprouts. Soil is mostly loose forest-floor type spruce needle + some leaves, composting in place. Would Columbine handle this? Fringecup? 🌱

One brave white flower in a huge patch of invasives. Unfortunately it got yanked with the rest. I'm hoping it's something from a rhizome or similar and will come back next year. I have until then to figure out what it is and how to propagate it 🌱

🌱 Phacelia tanacetifolia starting to unfurl aka Bee's Friend, Lacy Phacelia, Blue Tansy, and Self-Seeding-$*@&%@#

The app is new this year and a disaster. The angler's club meeting had people saying they WERE CITED when they could not show their license nor catch log because of connection issues, server issues, and so on. Supposed offline/out-of-range capabilities didn't work. Etc.

Casualty of the administration's thrashing around in the Middle East: The licenses are water-resistant because they're pulled out all the time on the water because you're required to record your catches at the time they are caught. They get soaked fast. wdfw.wa.gov/newsroom/new...

#webrant Website that doesn't let us sort or products by availability. I am not scrolling through four pages of search returns where 90% say "SOLD OUT: Enter email to be notified when new stock arrives" to see if what I need to buy today is in-stock. Frustrating UX.

My dream website would let me pick "Perlite" on the search filters listing and make it possible to somehow distinguish "Perlite ONLY" from the 85 matches on mixes and blends and potting soils that just happen to contain some perlite. ESPECIALLY don't show me 10 wheelbarrows.

Geneaological research is a constant reminder of medical advances. The majority of entries on many old death ledgers are infants and children; page after page listing deaths now prevented with vaccines. Diptheria, pertussis, measles ... #idlethoughts #geneaology Also: Yay 1926 census !!!

Any recommendations for *specific* varieties of fuchsia that are good for hummingbirds? 🪶 Not all varieties produce enough nectar, and it's hit-or-miss buying at the garden center. Couple of local clubs' web pages + social media haven't been updated in years :( 🌱

2025-04-15 - FOTS Osprey flew through 🪶 It was a little male that circled around in the blustery winds ahead of the approaching rain, calling and calling. Seems late. Did I just miss them earlier or are they late or am I misremembering the dates? Welcome back, either way. Signs of spring!!

I'll never look at my banding getup the same way again

Springtime for Anna's ... Me: "You silly hummingbird, quit poking those dried stalks." Bird: <ignores me, keeps poking> Me: "That Fireweed's not going to bloom for months" Bird: <flies away with beak full of fluff> Me: "OMG YOU'RE COLLECTING NESTING MATERIAL!!!" Also me: *squeees and melts* 🪶

They never took a percussion class or ran this past any musicians. Yes, I could make music with a pizza (and not just by feeding musicians with it) #pizzachallenge #badcaptchas

For when you need to scan FISH fish, not horse fish or bird fish or any other type of fish. 🌿

🌱 Dahlia disappointment has been mostly offset by the discovery of Chelonia (Turtlehead) shoots. It's coming back! It didn't die last year when it went from done-blooming to brown-and-crispy in two weeks! ... still going to keep the pot isolated until I rule out disease. But it's alive!

Late getting started on these, but finally got a big bag of dahlias from CostCo for my partner's balcony. CostCo bulk bags are hit-or-miss and this multipack was hit AND miss. So. We'll see how it goes. 🌱 Send dirt.This stuff is expensive to pot up!

Dash Point State Park - the resident bald eagle pair was seen mating today. I'd say "signs of spring" except that baldies sometimes start nesting months earlier. "Signs of when they finally get around to it" or "waited til the snow melted" maybe. 🪶 🦅

The mystery killer whales that visited Seattle earlier this month, and had never been recorded before 2025 when they showed up in Anchorage, are back in Puget Sound again! #orca #t419s ide thoughts - how much would it cost to get the genetic testing done if samples could be obtained?

"Bone marrow transplants require extensive prep and aren't cheap, but it'll cure you unless you roll a 1 on this d20" Science is amazing and if I won one of those billion-dollar lotteries I'd look at setting up a foundation to help people afford stuff like this.

Then there's the other group of users, who upon seeing their application has updated itself, say "shitshitshitSHIT" and go leaping for the Settings to see what's been auto-installed and needs to be disabled until they have the time to research it.

Just 15 minutes ago: Resident pair of adult bald eagles were tag-teaming a laden gull. Gull finally drops its fish, the eagle immediately behind dives to catch the loot, while the second eagle powers forward and catches the GULL. Parasitism AND predation! 🪶 Amazing flying display.