The trees are still green, but starting to turn, the waterlily is blooming, but our fishes have grown lethargic, so I risked an icy bath and went in quest of the pond thermometer, which registered, yes, 54 degrees.
Fishy digestion, of course dependent on chemistry, slows as it cools, and therefore we now go off our high-protein summer food and onto the fishy equivalent of Cheerios, which they don’t mind either, actually; and let their gut empty while the sun shines enough to warm them and let them digest. They’re under their winter cover, now, a floating circle of hose and greenhouse shade fabric, which protects them and does a little bit to collect heat. I’m thinking of doing one out of swimming pool bubble cover, which would help even more, and might keep the leaves out of the water—but one has to be careful not to restrict gas exchange with the atmosphere: it’s why you keep that one hole open in the ice when it freezes.
So the trees and flowers will go to autumn soon. And we will break out the snowblower, since this is La Nina’s winter again.
You’ve seen the word count meter stall. Yours truly has to do some thinking, which requires calm and quiet, so that’s what I’m up to.
Thinking is a good thing! We’ll be happy when the word count starts up again, but in the meantime I have two words for you. “DEEP THOUGHTS”
By the way, were you able to see Travis Taylor’s “Rocket City Rednecks” on NatGeo channel last night? I’ve been working on counter IED programs for the last 6 years, but his “beer can vehicle armor” was priceless, a little simplistic, but priceless. The moonshine powered rocket was funny too. If you want to have a laugh check it out.
Over here on the ‘wet side’ it’s still warm enough to have the koi and goldfish actively eating. I tend to keep duckweed on the ponds no matter what, so they eat that even if they are bored with the wheat-germ food. I haven’t gone to wheat-germ yet….but they don’t like it much. This strategy seems to work…for me, at least. I do have to net out some of the youngsters to keep the bioload under control.
I’m toying with the idea of importing some really awesome guppies from Thailand along with a local fish club member who has done this before. Guppies….you say???? There’s something magical about livebearers even if it’s the fish most 8 year old start off with. I’m not messing with any tanks that require water chemistry my orchids don’t want drenched over them….so no more African lake cichlids and certainly no marine or brackish. I do have to harden our ultra-soft water a bit for livebearers, but this works for the orchids as well.
Sigh, we had our first gullywasher of the rainy season out of that same front that brought you a dust storm. This week its definitely been fall weather- honest to gosh rain one day, misty falling fog another day, then 2 days of ‘Chetco effect’ where the east wind blows and we get HOT. Summer was good for the critters, the osprey pair that nest a few miles north of where I work successfully got two babies flying, and I’ve seen two bobcats in the past couple weeks. One bouncing across my road (bigger, with a ruff) just after dusk, and the second today (fairly young, still scrawny and no ruff) coming to drink at the pond at work about 5pm.
Haika, I understand about the guppies! Even the feeder guppies fascinated me when I was working at the pet store because of the totally random patterns they’d show up with. The over-bred mass production ‘Fancy Guppies’ we sold were boring, but I know the breeders overseas had some spectacular stock that I could never convince the boss to bring in. Have FUN!
Yeah…back in grad school one of my numerous part time jobs was doing water changes in the fish tanks at the local pet store (mostly fish & reptiles). That’s when I dabbled in salt water since I could get everything at cost.
Guppy types: Right now I keep Endler’s livebearers (a type of wild guppy) which are striking and quite uniform. The males have lime green and bright bright orange markings with black accents. I’m interested in adding some of the blue grass patterned guppies and some purple Moscows. But it’ll take a minimum of a couple tanks each to manage new strains so it’s a tank space issue. And you really have to go to specialty folks to get the good stuff….it’s not in the typical pet store.
I know CJ plays with koi and marine but don’t know if she does any other tanks?????
Lol, over here in ‘cold and damp’ blighty it’s been weird:
http://www.channel4.com/news/uk-basks-in-wacky-hot-weather
I was playing golf Wednesday afternoon and nearly had to pack it in because of the heat.
Seems like you were just talking about getting the fish ready for Spring. Where did the Summer go?
It’s been a weird year for weather, I miss Spring and Fall, but it appears we are jsut going to have Winter – Summer – Winter this year.
Here (Oakland CA) we are getting our autumn warm spell that precedes the winter rains.
I’m hoping when I am in Tokyo in October that we shall get to see some fall colors as the first snowfall on Mt Fuji has already happened early this year.
I am looking forward to cooler weather here as well as some much needed rain.The lack of rain has been awful this year.Round bales of hay are selling for 175.00 if you can find them.If anyone can push a few rain clouds to Texas we would be grateful.
Amen! dusty. Many farmers around here didn’t even bother to plant a crop this year, as it would have been prohibitively expensive to irrigate it. We haven’t had many wild fires up in the panhandle this year, though — most of the vegetation burned off last year and this year’s been so dry, nothing much has grown to replace it. We’ve had highs in the 80’s here for a week or two, with lows in the 50’s, and today our predicted high is a whopping 79.
The mountains of southeastern AZ were particularly hard hit with wildfires (Horseshoe fire in the Chiricahuas and Monument fire within 1 mile of our house) this summer, but our particular corner has actually had an average amount of rainfall during our “monsoon” which officially ends today, but which has decided to stay late since it arrived late. Hurricane Hillary has added some late moisture too. Temperatures are starting to drop (highs in the 80s, lows in the 50s F) but we shouldn’t have “cold” (highs in the 50s) weather until our “winter” rains appear around the end of November. We are in the 11th year of below average rain (about ten inches per year), so even if we got “average” rainfall this winter we’d still be in a water deficit. Ground water conservation is a regional concern here where Central Arizona Project water from the Colorado river is NOT available. Water coming over the border from Mexico has been steadily dropping while the border population has been exploding and Mexican mining has increased. Many of my ranching friends have liquidated their herds of cattle and gotten out of the business due to lack of graze and silage. Even our local farmers’ market has had remarkably slim pickings this year.
After all the troubles of the summer, I’m glad you’re getting some quiet time for thinking. And being outdoors in this beautiful Fall weather is perfect for it. Good for the soul, too. As for your writing, I, for one, am content to wait; a “Bren-ji book” (as my daughter calls them) is always worth it. It will be done when it is done.
Wouldn’t a small pump bubbling out of a tube, even without those porous stones, provide both aeration and surface disturbance to keep the surface from freezing solid (most of the time)?
It does help, but it stirs the water layers, so it actually may cause the water to be colder where the fish sleep. In the winter, oddly enough, the water is warmer the deeper you are, because the ground near the surface is frozen, as is the water surface. But deeper down, the ground is not frozen, and the water is sharing the warmth from the ground.