u/Ruffffian

Some of them clearly have spices left in them — and yes I am a coward, and no I will not eat it ;)

Two more chrysalis remain!

These little girls are blue star, blue copper maran, and barnevelder (which maaaay be a Welsummer as the store said they’re hard to tell apart, though they were as confident as they could be). Reliable broody mama Agatha Dustybottoms will be raising them—I’ll be sneaking them under her broody butt tonight. 💕

First 2 photos are in unenhanced indoor lighting; third photo has contrast and shadows turned up to show details; fourth photo zooms in on the little letters by the hole; last photo is of the all but erased back that still shows seated Britannia’s outline.

I know whatever it is, it isn’t worth much because of the drilled hole on top of how badly worn it is, but the mystery of What Is It is really bugging me.

Best match is a 1750s era British George III half penny, but the head outline seems wrong (even if badly worn) to match all the stuff going on in his half penny portrait. I can make out GEO(R?) on the left side of the portrait, but there is also an upside down ?T-R? to the left of the hole that I can find no examples of anywhere. The back is badly worn, but the outline of Britannia is still clear. Any date mark is lonnnnnng gone.

It weighs roughly 8oz by kitchen scale (I can’t seem to find my jewelry scale, ugh) and is ~27mm in diameter (I may be off 1mm in either direction). It is thin from wear and maybe 1mm thick.

Is this just a really old counterfeit, or…?

FTR something British or colonial would make the most sense considering the rest of this inherited collection, though we ARE finding random 1800s coins from Spain, Sweden, Greece, Brazil, Ottoman Empire, and Canada.

Some pics are of the same coin(s) showing both sides, as you can probably figure out. 😊 I’m learning what they are as I go via Google lens and ChatGPT. Not the best resources I know, but considering the volume of coins we need to sift through it helps move things along. I am getting a speed course in coin ID and valuing, heh. These are some of the interesting pieces — there are plenty more I’m sure, but I can only go through so much at a time 🤪

There is also a significant amount of 1964 and earlier silver quarters and dimes, and what has to be hundreds and hundreds of wheat pennies.

Found while cleaning out my in-laws’ home. It was in an envelope from my MIL’s mother’s kitchen—looks like when husband’s grandmother died, his parents just swept up all her recipes, saved articles, and business cards and kept them in a file cabinet for 30+ years.

While she probably saved it for the recipes, considering how harsh MIL’s mother was on MIL about her weight, it carries an extra layer of yikes.

I love all her shepherd noises!

I used the 5 1/4” disc to explain to my 20yro and 16yro sons why they’re called “floppy”’discs, then showed them one of the 3 1/2” discs (not pictured) to explain why the save icon on many apps/programs looks like that 😆

These are 2 photos each of the same 2 caterpillars. 😊 They’re about 4-5 days old. There may be another soon as i apparently brought in another egg with the milkweed they’re munching. I’m hoping I can maybe put them directly back on the plants when they’re closer to 1.5-2” and hopefully safe from most predators.

As a mother of a 16yro and a 20yro who also seem to just lounge around waiting for me to bring them food…I feel this. 🤣

Watching this kid try to fly off to our other tree 10’ away was pretty hilarious. S/he was head bobbing in every direction trying to do all the calculations before awkwardly flapping off. But hey kid, you did it! Well done you. 👏

Thank heavens she’s wearing a seatbelt attachment or she’d be in my lap. FTR my car has a/c blowers in the back seats as well as front so she gets plenty of cool air; she just wants to drive, I guess. 😆

…’cause it’s clearly not this one! 🤪🤣

Focus of the pic is our 2’ goshiki koi GusGus, one of the 4 survivors of a catastrophic ammonia spike last fall that wiped out our other 22 koi, as well as all of our goldfish and all 3 species of minnows, in our 4700gal pond. Above him is our ~20yro red-eared slider Bubbles🐢, and our 2 1/2’ fellow ammonia poisoning survivor and house favorite shiru utsuri (whose genetics didn’t get that utsuri notice—thus she she cheap🤣) Phoebe to the left. You can also see part of our new-ish goromo koi in the left corner, as well as a single rosy red minnow/xanthic fathead minnow scouring the bottom for leftovers. I believe that is our losing-his-lemon hariwake to the right of the goshiki.

FTR: I called animal control to report the mangy coyote—poor girl had open wounds all over her naked skin. I haven’t seen her since, so hopefully she’s getting cared for. Also, Sorry for my harsh language and attitude toward the coyotes; I do actually love them, I just wish for them to stay in the nearby hills and away from our chickens and neighbor’s cats.

This is crazy! During our first month together,Juniper has already encountered 2 coyotes and a skunk while on our “walks” (I’m disabled and use a mobility scooter, so she gets a nice trot around). It was interesting how she responded to them—even though they are dog-like to us, Juniper reacted very differently to the coyotes than she does with other dogs. Whereas she might exchange a happy glance with a dog before continuing on and ignoring it, she growled and started barking at the first one and really wanted to go chase it down. (You can spot the second one in the first second or two of the clip, turning left into the cul-du-sac.)

Meanwhile, skunk got her interest like, “Oooh! Another kitty friend!” NO. NOT FRIEND.

We’ve kept milkweed in our Southern California garden for years now and we get regular monarch visitors. Weirdly to us, we haven’t seen any caterpillars at all this year. Lots of feeding monarchs, no babies. 😕

Husband did find a dead inch-long monarch caterpillar last week in the grass in front of the garden; we figured it was from one of our chickens snagging it from the bit of the milkweed that juts through the chicken wire, but that’s it. The bulk of the plants are protected, so why there aren’t babies in the chicken-safe zone is a 🤷🏻‍♀️ for us. Boo. Funny, the plants are doing the best they’ve ever done, yet it’s the only year we haven’t seen caterpillars.

I’m just happy to see these adults making regular stops! Also, fuck aphids. I am daily wiping and/or spraying them off the plants. 😤

Still an itty bitty bit left in front of the tail. :::sigh:::

It’s the risk of buying young koi, we know. At least s/he’s a gorgeous silver-white doitsu even without the yellow-orange, but boo. (Filmed from our viewing window)

Lucy was taken in by us in 2013 as a 2-3yro stray right off the streets of Fresno. She’d been abandoned at a middle of nowhere gas station/food mart where my trucker BIL stopped for a meal; apparently, she’d been living behind the dumpsters for a few weeks. Vet and everyone else said she was a rat terrier (to the point one vet argued the Embark results had to be wrong), and her personality sure as hell said terrier to me: lots of energy, very stubborn—training was a beast!, very opinionated, very HEY WHO GOES THERE OH YEAH? GO FUCK YOURSELF WHILE I FUCK YOU UP, and inSANEly hyper focused on rodents.

Then after a few years, I decided to Embark her and was stunned to discover there is not a drop of any kind of terrier blood anywhere. 🤪 Personality-wise, she is almost all dachshund (from what I understand)—that’s where I believe that stubborn, rodent-obsessed, cussing-out, and digging obsessed-nature most likely comes from. (All it seems the Pomeranian did was give her horrendous teeth; she only has 5 left now.)

I did the Embark age estimate test a couple years ago, and by its estimate, she is now an old lady of 15…nearly toothless, nearly blind, and losing her hearing. Sadly, she has been sinking into canine cognitive dysfunction (AKA dog dementia), but we love her and are doing our best to keep her comfortable. We were worried about adding the young GSD, but they already get along better than Lucy did with our previous shepherd. I almost think the dementia helps. She seems to have moments remembering what puppy play is, and this GSD is very respectful of her “bug off, kid” grumps.

She wasn’t allowed in the bed with us for a decade or so, but she’s earned the big bed for her final years and is currently snoring next to me. ❤️‍🩹