Volunteering at Detroit Abloom

On a cold March night a few winters ago I quickly strode from my car to the warmth of my local library.  A local flower farm, less than a mile from my home, was holding a seminar on Dahlias.  I brought my $8 check which would secure a healthy tuber, a pot full of planting media, and a beautifully delivered presentation that the owners warned may start a lifetime fascination with Dahlias.  The were SO right.

I have always been fascinated with plants.  My mom inherited her green thumb from her dad.  Back in the 1700s my white bread ancestors farmed the land in a more rural Connecticut colony.  I have a modest raised bed that my husband built for me several springs ago.  I have been converting my too symmetrically planned landscaping into something more pleasing to my non-linear mind.

The books I check out of the library are invariably ones about plants.  My current fascination is with carnivorous plants, and we have been populating our aquaria with water plants to provide nitrogen removal, food for the turtles and vegetarian and omnivorous fish, and to bring some green into the primarily gravel and orangish fish environments.

I have bought Dahlia tubers from my local garden stores, but most I have gotten at Detroit Abloom.  Since my retirement I have much more free time on my hands, so I started to volunteer at this flower farm.  The owners are so         and

I have also achieved the Master Gardener designation through the Michigan State University Extension Program.  This volunteer program requires forty hours of community service to achieve your initial certification, and additional time each year.

Fish stewardship 101

After a very mild winter, spring seems to have sprung just after the solstice.  It makes me want to visit the fish we had to give away after the big flood of 2016. It wasn't really that bad, with only two feet in the basement at its highest, but we lost several watery creatures and a lot of equipment.

The koi and goldfish found a home a few blocks away, and the fourteen inch plecostamus also found a nice new owner.  The koi pond is almost four feet deep, ten feet long and five feet wide.  There were lots of plant stalks that the fish could nestle up to and stay warm.  Our ten plus inch gold fish dwarfed the koi they had in there.  For all of our fish it was the first winter they spent exposed to the elements.

The goldfish and koi both like the colder temperatures, which probably explains the goldfishes quick growth when they were living in the much warmer turtle aquarium.

Goldie, the big goldfish, was eaten by a bold raccoon early in the summer of 2017.  I am afraid that her vibrant orangish golden hue made her an easy target in the pond.  The only other orangish fish was Oriole, a four inch black and orange koi who could more easily hide the aquatic plants when the raccoon ambled by the pond.

These may be the same raccoons who are molesting the eggplants and jalapeños in my garden. 

We have bought a new plecostamus named Petty.  This is a dual homage to Lori Petty of Tank Girl and League of Their Own fame, and the trumpet like flowers. ÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷/////??????????? I'm not a huge fan of the flower, as they are not perennials. 

Petty is faring well in the garage based turtle aquarium.  I will report later on how she fares over the winter.

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The winter went pretty well for the garage dwellers.  My partner in crime constructed an insulated enclosure to keep them nice and toasty.  There were a few pump problems and water level sensors that malfunctioned, so most the the annoying stuff was cleaning out the filter media.  If you don't do that frequently enough, the water gets cloudy and the fish die if the aquarium gets to nasty.

Ahem, we lost two mutant feeder fish (who grew to the normal turtle aquarium size of about 8 inches).  Of course, one of them was Orange Crush.  Whitey Bolger is the only one who escaped death, this time......

We had a water quality crash yesterday, but I grabbed Whitey out of there and quarantined them in a Home Depot bucket with a bubbler.  Two feeder fish (only 1.5 inches so far) that I put in last week also showed up in the sump as we changed out the disgusting filter media.  They made it down the siphon pipe without perishing, so fishy props to them.

Once the water gets a little cleaner, they will go back in with Nacho, Libre and Petty.

Stay tuned for they next water drama in the garage!

Gnats

As I walk around the neighborhood in the summer, I frequently encounter swarms of gnats.

I am usually carrying a long stick, and I perform a crazy gnat attack on the little buggers.  The neighbors must wonder what the crazy stick dance might mean.  I am fascinated by the patterns they make in the air, but it is not very pleasant to swallow a dozen of the flying hazards.

I am going to have to research what those little critters are up to when the weather is warm in the Midwest.

I owe them that before I encounter then in a few months.

Table scraps suitable for birds.

https://www.thespruce.com/kitchen-scraps-to-feed-birds-386571

Cool planetary science podcast - Cassini at Saturn: The Final Year

http://www.stitcher.com/s?eid=46588498&refid=asa

Pet people

I picked up 100 crickets for the turtles today,  In the aquaria near the crickets they had several varities of tiny koi.

My hope is that I will be able to buy a few at some point this summer to complement Silver, Bird & Stache.

And so, it begins

I am a fish fancier, both to watch and eat, as a matter of fact.  They are just fascinating!

Here are some of the many reasons I am fascinated with fish in general, and Koi in particular:

• You can eat them (but I wouldn't eat koi, because they are too pretty);
• they are slippery and fun;
• they come in many different colors;
• they can be as easy to keep as a goldfish (koi, not all fish);
• they love to be fed;
• their patterns are so varied that I could stare at them for hours; etc. 

I have a few miniature koi in my basement (no, not in the freezer.....), and of course I have named them based on their coloration.

There is Stache, who has a very pronounced black mustache feature.  Next there is Silver, who I think needs no further explanation.  And the last critter is Bird, since she (guessing of course) has the strongest black and orange coloring.  I am a proud Orioles fan.  I also love Jazz and saxophones, and one of my favourite artists is Charlie Parker, whose nickname was Bird.

I have much more to share about fish and ponds, but I am going to end here so that I can get some blog formatting done before I have to get back to REAL life.

Ciao!