Berkeley hills

Confused

Bodega

I went up to Bodega Bay this weekend for a little late birthday celebration for Kanner. We stayed in a house a few miles from the beach, played a lot of board games, made great dinners, hottubbed it, completed a whole puzzle (!). Twas relaxing, but not restful.

Fog at the gulch today

Banded at Pine Gulch today with Lisa. Alright day, but felt kind of rusty having not banded since sunday. We got 17 birds, 8 species.

This lil guy was very tangled in the net, so I had to cut him out eventually. He eventually flew off, but kind of pitifully. Sorry lil guy.


That is a tick. I tried removing it, but couldn't I sliced it, so that it would at least not impede vision as much.


Here's a golden crowned sparrow. Their crown patterns can vary quite a bit, and can only be used for ageing if they are at the more extreme ends of having very little brown striping, or a lot of black. This one was in between, but had about three black feathers on its head, which make you wonder.

Bread

Michael and I made some bread today. Neither of us had ever made anything but white bread, so we're starting our new bread making dreams with whole wheat. We each tried a different basic recipe and varied a few other steps of the process. My dough was enough for three loaves so I put two in loaf pans, and made the third into a round loaf, which turned out very flat.

We put sunflower seeds, oats, flax seeds, and raisins in the dough. We learned a few things: put more raisin in, always go with your gizzard, proof your yeast (michael!), and wheat just doesn't taste as good as white.

The beach, mon

Stitched

Picture by Joe