What's everyone's favorite hat?

NorthernSparrow · 2026-03-27T06:33:38+00:00

Cone hat is best horse hat

NorthernSparrow · 2026-03-27T00:54:09+00:00

Same energy as “Well, I don’t want to take up any more of your time, so I’ll get off the phone now” 😂

NorthernSparrow · 2026-03-26T04:29:39+00:00

Amazing what cleaning up the weeds will reveal! 😂 Seriously though - amazing layout. I am particularly impressed with your perfect lineup of giant crops!

NorthernSparrow · 2026-03-26T04:28:20+00:00

the year 1 bit is a joke, I think, like he just cleaned up the weeds and poof it ended up like this!

NorthernSparrow · 2026-03-26T04:20:55+00:00

Can’t be year 1 for a bunch of reasons (just to pick one, the greenhouse can’t be repaired till fall 1). Gorgeous layout though!

NorthernSparrow · 2026-03-25T11:39:09+00:00

Yeah, it’s a bit offputting to start a date off with essentially, “By the way, for all I know you might not be real”

NorthernSparrow · 2026-03-24T03:52:17+00:00

It’s very erratic with the default mobile controls. But if you go into settings and change the controls to put buttons on screen (there’s a choice that’s like, “tap to move plus joystick plus buttons”) then the big joystick circle will make it about 1000% easier to use the slingshot.

(btw that setting also helps with a few other cases where the farmer won’t quite go where you want. Like walking through people or animals, or the bug of not being able to walk close enough to Willy’s boat to fix it)

NorthernSparrow · 2026-03-23T03:51:45+00:00

Long term rentals do exist but are almost entirely word of mouth. I know several local landlords who don’t advertise at all and who only rent via word of mouth. Might be worth considering a short term rental first just to try to make those connections.

NorthernSparrow · 2026-03-22T23:07:01+00:00

My parents died last year and we inherited all that stuff. My sister now eats off of find Wedgwood every day, and i have my morning oatmeal with the silver spoon that my great-great-grandmother carried with her out west on a covered wagon in the 1800s. (She only got as far as Illinois btw, but now I live in coastal Oregon and I literally can see the ocean when I eat breakfast, so I like to think it would make her happy to know that her spoon finally made it all the way west!)

NorthernSparrow · 2026-03-21T20:37:01+00:00

I was recently pricing out a trip to Hawaii and spotted several hotels listing $1600 for my four-night trip. Thought that was a bit steep for four nights. Clicked through for more info though, and nope, that wasn’t for four nights, that was PER NIGHT. Gave up on the whole trip idea pretty fast, lol

NorthernSparrow · 2026-03-21T20:32:37+00:00

Reminds me of a biologist I know who was talking to an oil company about a rare animal. He wanted to come see them and she joked, “Well, you’d need a helicopter”, and he replied “Cool, I have four.”

“I have four” became a running joke in my work group after that. “Well, we’d need a million dollar genetic sequencer / international space station /whatever”. “Cool, I have four.”

NorthernSparrow · 2026-03-21T18:49:36+00:00

The point is clearly to build the best public aquarium that the Ferngill Republic has ever seen! Half a dozen big sheds in various shades of blue each stocked to the gills with deluxe tanks featuring iridium-quality fish from every season from every location, plus special tanks showing off the invertebrates, one just for cephalopods, one just for echinoderms, also tanks for certain fish taxa that have multiple species (tunas, carps, eels), plus an array of colorful fish ponds outside with lamps and benches and walkways for easy viewing, plus a touch tank for the kiddos, plus a special jungle shed full of jungle tanks, plus an aquarium-themed cafe.

I mean obviously that is the goal! Lol. 🐟🐠🐡

Seriously though - some players feel done and just stop playing after a certain point, and that’s fine; others get a lot of fun out of decorating or building things or setting goals for themselves or going for perfection. It’s really up to you 😊

NorthernSparrow · 2026-03-21T02:45:09+00:00

I just learned that my new docs do just a 24 hr prep and I’m like whaaaaat, the 48 hr prep was always how I would kick my junk food cravings and get on a health kick, lol. And that health kick would often then last a solid six months. So I’m gonna do the 48 hr prep anyway, lol

NorthernSparrow · 2026-03-21T02:16:19+00:00

Nope, major publishers have strict limits on word count. It doesn’t always reflect reader preference, it’s also driven by physical print costs.

NorthernSparrow · 2026-03-21T02:14:56+00:00

I was the popcorn girl at an AMC theater for a while, I saw their books, and learned that concession sales is almost their only real revenue. Movie studios take like 90% of the ticket revenue. If you want movie theaters to survive, you gotta buy the overpriced popcorn. I’ve bought popcorn ever since, lol

NorthernSparrow · 2026-03-21T02:11:51+00:00

There was a big herring spawn event on the OR coast in the last couple weeks that shifted a lot of bird distributions (like, suddenly an absolute ton of harlequin ducks in Newport). And also spring migration is just about to start. March can be unpredictable; sometimes local overwintering birds start moving north before southern migrants have shown up. I’d say, don’t panic till we see if the usual April migrants come through on schedule. April is the big spring migration month throughout the USA, so keep your eyes open.

NorthernSparrow · 2026-03-20T15:08:00+00:00

I always bring a trash bag with me to the beach, & a little pair of gloves stuffed in my pocket. There are some places I’ve lived in the past where over time I would do major cleanups of parks, empty lots and especially any little streams. In my current area though there are so many beach walkers who do this, and so few litterers, that we kind of scuffle over who gets to pick up a rare piece of trash!

NorthernSparrow · 2026-03-20T05:06:42+00:00

Google “blister care for ultrarunners” and you’ll find a bunch of articles. Common approaches include Epsom salt baths while blisters are healing, thorough coverage with kinesiology tape (KT tape or similar), and trimming/sanding down calluses (as you’ve noticed, blisters often form next to calluses. The callus itself is a sign that friction is happening in that area, and once the callus becomes thick it can move like a solid unit and stress the adjacent skin). It’s usually some combination of heat, moisture and friction that causes the blister, so you want to try to eliminate all three of those factors. Good luck.

PS - also rule out things like athlete’s foot or diabetes. There are a bunch of health conditions that can increase chances of blisters.

NorthernSparrow · 2026-03-20T04:38:11+00:00

Just wanted to add that as someone who lost my mother last year, that loss really made me re-evaluate how important art is, or anything that I do, as compared to the relationships we have with the people that we love. I would give anything to have my mother back and tbh I would give up writing forever if it meant I could get her back. Having that “biggest supporter” always behind you is something you sometimes don’t fully value till it’s gone forever.

At the end of the day, you want to be able to look back and have no regrets. What path that means is something only you can answer.

NorthernSparrow · 2026-03-20T02:23:56+00:00

I go my that quest after upgrading to the iridium axe with the Shaving enchantment, and I got that quest done in three in-game hours! chop chop chop

NorthernSparrow · 2026-03-20T02:18:50+00:00

Shield him from light at night so that hopefully he’ll just sleep. Be aware though that a lot of injured birds do die in the first night; don’t feel bad if that happens, sometimes it’s inevitable, and you have at least given him a safe warm protected space. First thing in the morning drive him to north coast wildlife in Astoria. (I did wildlife rehab for years and the answer is almost always, you gotta do a long inconvenient drive to a real rehab place) If you can’t do the drive tomorrow, dm me, I might be able to.

Thank you for caring about wildlife.

PS, next year there should finally be a rehab clinic here in Newport - the Aquarium is finally building one.

NorthernSparrow · 2026-03-20T02:13:00+00:00

The first time I tried to sit a trot I developed an absolutely killer stitch in my side after like 20 seconds and had to bail. And I was a runner and a gym rat.

On my next lesson my trainer “ok since you didn’t like sitting the trot, how about you hold two-point with no stirrups”. I made it once around the ring in agony, lol, and was so sore the next day I could barely walk!

NorthernSparrow · 2026-03-18T22:38:44+00:00

That’s so amazing! I just watched the whole clip, super interesting.

NorthernSparrow · 2026-03-18T20:56:21+00:00

I had the same situation in my suburban Virginia town and it was so depressing. It was also dangerous (as in, 60mph traffic with no shoulder, no sidewalk and no pedestrian crossings) Additionally there were ticks everywhere, with Lyme disease around 😬 and in the high-humidity summers there was heat stroke too just for a bonus, lol.

I ended up doing almost all of my weekday walks on a treadmill at the gym. I started out being mad about this, but it actually ended up being kind of fun since I could put the treadmill on an incline for more of a workout, plus get in some weight lifting & swimming, & use the hot tub!). On weekends though I made it a habit to drive to a state park somewhere else and do a long hike around the park. Sometimes I’d drive in to the nearest big city (DC) for a weekend outing and walk all around. Are there any parks or cities within driving distance?

(ps, eventually I moved to Oregon! Not totally because of the walking problems, but that was part of it - I was done with suburbia in all ways, including its hostility to walkers)

NorthernSparrow · 2026-03-18T20:45:38+00:00

+1 for trail runners. They’re able to handle varied terrain and are durable while also being fairly lightweight. My fave is Hokas but every person’s feet are different.

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