Annual caramel making. These seem 👌and perfectly plastic. Here’s a series of photos showing sugar mixture color at ~300°F, 320°F, near 340°F, after cream & butter added, and cooling to finish. Stressful making these as one errant crystal can cause it all to crystallize.

Black Phoebe! These flycatchers are elusive in our backyard.

Unidentified hummingbird enjoying rosemary flowers today. Maybe a Black Chin. Doesn’t seem to have the colorations of an Anna’s.

Split Pea Soup made with a ham hock! Love the cold season 🥰

House Sparrows frenetically bathing under the mandarin this morning.

Front yard: today and April 19. I cleaned up a lot of it today. This yard of cultivated native plants is so much more rewarding than a lawn.

Pulling out grass from the cultivated native sage is exhausting. At least I’m perfumed with sage now.

The Annie Cat maximizing sunlight.

Last year this was not our view into the backyard from the house. Now we regularly see White Crowns, House Sparrows, European Collared Doves, Scrub Jays, and less often Lesser Gold Finches. Thanks, bird feeder! What this means for spring/summer tree fruit harvest… 😬

New bird in our backyard! Yellow-rumped Warbler. A pair was feasting on our cultivated California Grapes that now have raisins.