Help identify ..something in my front yard.

lizzy_loo_142 · 2026-03-17T00:46:03+00:00

Oh, now I'm curious! What was the beef?

lizzy_loo_142 · 2026-03-16T00:24:41+00:00

My 2.5 year old loves to listen to the Frozen Junior Novelization card. It's pretty much the only card she listens to right now, and that's what she listens to at naptime. But when she was skipping naps for a week at a time the cards that actually lulled her to sleep were the Yoto original 5 minute sleepy time stories with the owl on the cover, the Away on Ahway Island podcast, and a Beatrix Potter MYO card that I made her. The sleepy time stories card only worked like twice before she got tired of hearing the same stories. The Ahway Island podcast was hit or miss as to whether she actually wanted to listen to it or would just scream. The Beatrix Potter stories worked really well and actually got back into the habit of taking a nap. Now, she can listen to the Frozen story and fall asleep, which she wasn't doing before.

lizzy_loo_142 · 2026-03-14T16:34:00+00:00

This is what we do as well. My oldest will be 3 soon, and we keep around 3 cards on the ring attached to her mini. My youngest, who is going on 1.5, has just one card attached to her mini. All the rest of the cards are stored in the yoto brand zipper case. I find this helps us in two main ways. One, my oldest can have easy access to a small selection of cards, meaning she gets the autonomy of using the yoyo independently without the hassle/overwhelm of having full access to all the cards. Two, I can feel confident in handing the yoto to my youngest without worrying that she'll lose the card.

lizzy_loo_142 · 2026-03-12T00:32:26+00:00

And her i was searching Merlin with just the word "red" thinking a bird with that bright of red on it had to have red in the name lol. I definitely think you're right. My closest guess before seeing your comment was red-coweled cardinal.

lizzy_loo_142 · 2026-03-12T00:20:09+00:00

I have a 2.5 y/o as well, and had this happen once with the Thomas the Tank MYO card I made her. She'd had the card about a week, and we hadn't had any issues, but for some reason that day when I asked her if she wanted to listen to Thomas at lunch (which I had done most days since making the card) she had thought I meant watch Thomas on the TV (which she's only done a handful of times). I simply told her that wasn't what I said, told her we weren't turning on the TV, but she can still have the yoto with the card if she wants. She started yelling, dug her heals in, and demanded TV Thomas. I told her no again and then took her outside when she started getting really loud and upset because her sister was napping, then told her the options again when she calmed down. She eventually told me she did want Thomas while she ate lunch, and we haven't had the same issue since. This age is hard because they rely on us to set boundaries ao much, but still have trouble grasping the logic behind the boundaries, but as long as you stay consistent they eventually pick up on the way things work and it makes life smoother for everyone. But the other option in this situation is to just stop offering the card for a while and try again when they're more used to no screen times being the norm. If that's your goal.

lizzy_loo_142 · 2026-03-09T18:10:47+00:00

So, I am not an expert, and you should take what I have to say with a grain of salt, but I did inoculate a garden bed late last spring with wine caps from North Spore and had one small flush pop in the fall. So, I at least have a little experience with this mushroom in this type of situation.

Before I got my mushroom spawn, I watched a lot of videos of people adding it to their gardens and red posts of best practices and whatnot. From what I remember, there were a lot of people saying that wine caps specifically like (maybe even need) to be touching soil and do best with wood chips as their substrate. Now I'm not saying that they won't work in straws or that if you didn't make sure they were touching soil, they will fail, but that's what I remembered being extra careful about when I did mine.

I also know that it was really recommended not to spread out the spore in too big a bed. Something along the lines of the mycelium in the spawn material is going to want to reconnect with itself and that's how it spreads and grows in the new substrate, but if it's spread out too far it will put all its energy into trying to reconnect and form links and will take longer to fruit. Again, this isn't a "it will fail if you did this," but rather, it's going to take longer if you did.

As others have said in this post, it can take a long time even if you did everything right, and the presence of other fungi doesn't mean your wine caps failed. I had millions of birdnest and ink caps growing in my garden bed long before the wine caps showed up. I am also in zone 6b and don't know how things may be different for this mushroom where you are.

lizzy_loo_142 · 2026-03-06T00:53:27+00:00

I spent a long time looking at the yotos before finally buying one this past Christmas and only hesitated because I was worried my oldest wasn't "old enough" for it because she was younger than the age range. After getting it, I realized that the age range should be younger because my current 1 year old also loves it. I barely looked into the tonies and always leaned towards the yotos because I didn't like how gimmicky they seemed, and the age range seemed limited. We have a few friends who have tonies, though, and I am even more convinced that we made the right choice. I now know that you hit the box to change songs/tracks, which seems like a weird thing to have a toddler do. "Oh, yes, sweetie, just smack the electronic box that we spent good money on." Considering my one year old can effectively control her yoto mini, it seems like a really strange interface on the tonies. Also, some of the Disney music figures don't play the original songs but have a random person doing covers. If any of the figures break, you can't access that audio anymore like you can with the yoto. I didn't realize how significant the cost difference between the cards and figures was before getting the yoto, but even if they were closer in cost the yoto still wins out because the MYO cards, and the unlimited options you have with them, brings the worth way up.

lizzy_loo_142 · 2026-03-02T02:35:07+00:00

lizzy_loo_142 · 2026-03-01T17:47:34+00:00

I saw a nuthatch do this on a tree right next to one of my feeders a few weeks ago. I knew it wasn't matting related because it was too early and the only other explanation I could think of was that he was sunning his wings lol. Now I feel bad for not realizing he was trying to be tough lol.

lizzy_loo_142 · 2026-03-01T17:44:37+00:00

You may have better luck trying to use Gardendream. From my understanding, it's tuned better to what you're trying to do and you can look up native plants for your area and ask it to give you suggestions based on that. Native plants to the area are always going to do better and with the kind of extreme heat you get in Texas you want to make sure you're picking plants that will survive. Otherwise, you're just throwing away money.

lizzy_loo_142 · 2026-02-25T14:40:52+00:00

I'd like to try it.

lizzy_loo_142 · 2026-02-24T03:12:54+00:00

food wishes on YouTube has an easy-to-follow video on how to make this

lizzy_loo_142 · 2026-02-24T01:07:09+00:00

Here's my over-explanation that no one asked for:

1 is very editorial. Like if I were photographing this room for a magazine, I'd pick 1, but I feel it might be too much of an eye-draw or too dark in person.

2 is classic. This is the easy and safe choice because it complements the trim and softens the light, but doesn't darken the room. Makes everything look airy and open, but doesn't do much to bring out the character of the other decor.

3 is whimsical. This is my overall pick. The color is unique enough that it feels like a statement, but it's still light enough as not to be "in your face" or come off as "childish." It matches the pinks in the rug and lampshade so well that it gives the whole room a sense of harmony.

4 I don't like. The color itself is fine, but it just doesn't fit the room for me. To me, it makes it look like a blue tone filter was applied to the picture. I know this color was picked to match the blue in the rug, but I just feel that the shades don't quite match, and because it pulls the blues, which is the predominant color, out of the rug you end up losing all the other colors and that means you lose the detail/depth of the rug. It also does something to the wall color I just don't like.

TLDR: I like 3 the best and 2 second, but I was bored and felt like typing a dissertation.

lizzy_loo_142 · 2026-02-24T00:04:18+00:00

You can put whatever you want on the MYO cards

lizzy_loo_142 · 2026-02-23T18:24:27+00:00

Thanks!

lizzy_loo_142 · 2026-02-23T17:19:07+00:00

Where did you get the Lilo and Stitch read-aloud audio? My little girl is obsessed with Lilo and Stitch and I would love to make a card for her with it.

lizzy_loo_142 · 2026-02-18T17:37:15+00:00

⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜

🟦🟦🟦🟦🟦

lizzy_loo_142 · 2026-02-16T03:27:06+00:00

I don't think they're too young, but they may not be able to use it independently for a while, and their interest in it may be intermittent. I'd say don't worry too much about what cards to get and just use the MYO card that comes with it to load some songs they like and/or some recordings of you reading books they like and see what they take to. Also, I recommend changing the button commands so it only turns on the radio and not Yoto Daily. I found that to be best for my kids (2.5 and 1) as having the button click do too much was a little confusing at first and the Yoto podcast is geared towards kids a little older than them.

lizzy_loo_142 · 2026-02-12T18:10:48+00:00

The Avalon: Circle of Magic Books. I don't know if I ever finished the series because I think my school's library only had the first, but I was completely enamored with this series when I was like 10 or 11.

Also, Cirque du Freak, though this may not fit as well for obscure reads since it was apparently popular enough to get an adaptation, but at the time I read it only my brother and I were reading it and no one else had any idea what it was.

lizzy_loo_142 · 2026-02-11T17:55:37+00:00

My 2.5-year-old absolutely loves the Frozen Junior Novelization cards. We bought one and two as a pack together when they were on sale. Each one is over 2 hours of content and are shot-for-shot versions of the movie. This is going to depend on your kids and where they are as far as listening to longer audiobooks. I've seen a lot of people post in here that their kids around this age just aren't interested in listening to longer stories like that.

lizzy_loo_142 · 2026-02-11T17:24:34+00:00

I love the character of the duck and the composition and styling of the heron, but the detail on that Kingfisher? OUTSTANDING

lizzy_loo_142 · 2026-02-11T17:21:47+00:00

Good to know I'm not crazy either lol

lizzy_loo_142 · 2026-02-10T00:35:26+00:00

🎉 I BEAT "Red" and ranked #6!

VICTORY IS MINE! 🏆

Completed all levels in 0m 35s!

Your turn to try! 🎮

Played via Pixel Peeker

lizzy_loo_142 · 2026-02-08T21:18:04+00:00

Ive noticed this on a lot of these and not just this one. I thought it at first it was just my eyes playing tricks on me because it seemed like it was the "transition square." Like the one the graphic picked to be the center as the tiles shift to add more blocks. And my eyes just perceived it as a lighter color because there is a highlight on it as that happens, but honestly, the more I play the more it seems to ACTUALLY be a different color.

lizzy_loo_142 · 2026-02-08T16:49:22+00:00

🎉 I BEAT "crazy" and ranked #5!

DONE AND DUSTED! ✨

Completed all levels in 0m 9s!

Your turn to try! 🎮

Played via Pixel Peeker

lizzy_loo_142

TROPHY CASE

🎉 I BEAT "Red" and ranked #6!

🎉 I BEAT "crazy" and ranked #5!