I don’t remember when we saw the first fireflies — walking back to the house after dark, there was one lonely little flash out in the field. But, over the past week or so, that one flash has been joined by dozens of others.
Category: Miscellaneous
A Bird in your pocket?
I had clothes drying on the line, and Anya grabbed them just before sunset. She quickly tossed everything into a basket and brought it into the house. A short time later, I got the clothes out of the basket to fold. I took out a pair of Scott’s jeans and … out flies this little bird! No idea how she got in there, and I’m really glad she didn’t seem to be hurt in any way. We turned off all the interior lights, opened the front door, and turned out the outside light. A little following her around and trying to persuade her to go in the right direction and swoop, she flew outside.
Restarting Ford 2110 After Running Out Of Diesel
We found a lot of instructions online for restarting a tractor after running out of diesel. It boils down to following the fuel line out of the tank and bleeding everything. The bleed screw on the fuel filter was pretty obvious – Philips head screwdriver, open it up, let it bubble until fuel flows, then lock it down. The injectors were obvious — and I need to check what size wrench we used. But the middle one … not so much. Figured I’d put a picture for anyone else who has the bad fortune to run out of fuel in their tractor. After bleeding air from the fuel filter, move on to this screw. An 11/16″ wrench to loosen the bolt head and a flat-head screwdriver. From there, move to the injectors. Voila, the tractor goes vroom again.
Eclipse
We watched the eclipse — it was surprising how much energy the sun puts off when the moon is mostly covering it!
But we had the totality for just under four minutes, and it was dark … and “sunrise” was everywhere.
By the River
Walking by the river to collect our maple sap
Big Bear Valley Eagle Eggs
Since “they” said the first egg was no longer viable on the 7th of March, we wondered when the rest of the eggs would be non-viable … looks like this weekend and Tuesday. Bummer, because we were hoping to see some baby eagles! Ash gets transfixed when there’s a bird on the TV.
| Egg | Egg Laid | Hatch Date | Nonviable Date |
| 1st | 26 Jan 2024 | 1 Mar 2024 | 7 Mar 2024 |
| 2nd | 28 Jan 2024 | 3 Mar 2024 | 9 Mar 2024 |
| 3rd | 31 Jan 2024 | 6 Mar 2024 | 12 Mar 2024 |
2024 Buzzards … I mean turkey vultures
We saw the first turkey vultures of the year today. Counting down until March 15th when the Wizard of Hinckley turns them all into buzzards!
AI Personas
I’ve seen people have a bit of fun with AI personas — pre-prompts that say “be a pirate” or something similarly silly, but you can use the personas to gear answers toward yourself as the target audience too — deeply technical or “explain it like I’m five”.
Although the AI takes “like I am 5” a little too literally — don’t need smart little elves or castles. 
The technical pre-prompt, though, avoids getting high level basic facts that you already know. 
First Robin of 2024
Letting the birds out this morning, I saw the first robin of 2024!
Let it snow …
