It's a bird!

It's a bird! and I wonder if you can tell what it is? I know of course :P the first one was later after we were going to a different site, and I took this from the stopped car, after I rolled down the window, and it was raining at that time. The bottom two were taken from across a river, a pretty wide one, and actually I was using a telescope that someone was kind enough to let me look through, way too far for my zoom to A. get that small and B. get that good of a picture Another person got a way better picture of a blue heron catching a fish, though he had one of those 400 some dollar cameras. This is a bird I had never actually seen before, and still not from too close.




I just hope I don't come back home and find like 20-30 little baby fishies swimming around, especially not non-guppies, since that would mean, I have more then the guppies to worry about breeding -_-

that means you, albino bronze cories... (that happened before when I came back from a vacation years ago)...
I already had a dream about that, which I believe was last night, though in reality I would be like :DDDDDDDD (attention: please help me find my jaw which fell off my face) <- only if that did happen (cories breeding)

at first it'd be a drat, then a few seconds later it'd be :D x a google (a 1 with a hundred zeros following it) AKA 1x(10^100)

I'm somewhat prepared for that, I have the food I had last time which was for guppies before I had, had any babies before (that food isn't necessary for them, I can crush flakes small enough for them, so I didn't use it). And I had that 2.5 gallon available

Oh dang... I left the goldfish in there... whoopsies... ehe hee (if you take it out, please be careful in looking for the net you don't accidently kick the container which I put the bottle caps where I put sand that I thought had the triop eggs in them, The net's not over there anyways, I think it's under the 55 gallon. don't step on the wet sock btw. I'm don't remember where I put that... Note: when water gets on the aquarium, in this case it was when I filled the 2.5 by putting the 2.5 gal on the 55 gallon's water surface and letting water run in it, I usually wipe it off with the first old shirt or sock that's old I see, usually from the day previous, now if there isn't one I'll just change socks/or just use the ones I had been wearing.)

The sun's set by now here(8:08)
PTYAL (post to you all later) :)

Trip up to Maryland

Dad reminded me that I didn't need my cable, as long as Uncle Jim had a way to upload from the SD flash card, which he did. You know what that means? I can upload the pictures after all :D

so here are some of the trip up.

When we were almost here I looked back and was like "what in the world? The sun's setting already?" I was reminded that the sun sets/rises around a hour earlier here then back in Ohio, the differance between the two places is noticable obviously.

at our second stop, this one for food at the cracker barrel


the chinese torture chamber :P
you see that square? If you pull that out you get a seat, one of two, one of which I was using.

A time when I was able to get a shot like this, but the view of miles of forest was pretty constant throughout the trip, and close to the end, after the sun was set, we came across some deer, Uncle Jim counted around 15 or something.

Very interesting picture of the earth.


two pictures of the sun setting the first at around 7:55:33 and the second at 7:56:12 (clock is set to my watch which appears to be around 3-2 minutes slow. or did I set it later? *shrugs

The differance is the fact in the second one I zoomed in on the sun, and in the first one I didn't other then that it's unaltered. The zooming appears to have made quite a differance in the look of the picture though, it was my best of the day I'd say that. Might beat all the ones from today, but only in looks.



So far so fun :D

Great ride to Maryland first of all. I got some nice pictures too, but I didn't bring the cord to upload photos for my camera, so no pictures can get posted until I get back. I also got some nice photographs today too.

Clear skies for the whole trip there as well. I sat in the seat that Unlce Jim dubbed, a form of chinese torture. He thought one of us would be strangling him sooner or later... guess not, it wasn't that bad, though around the end of the trip I was getting a bit sore. I'm withholding some details until I'm able to upload the pictures. Also I'm sleeping in the room with the computer, though so far it's not the computer that's keeping me up, no instead it's the books in the room, which have to do with warfare in the 1900's, quite interesting to read about all the different ships.

We saw some birds today. Also the window which is right behind where I would put my head when I sleep is open, allowing me to hear all the insects, and I'll tell you there's quite a bit at night, but I love that. I kinda wish we were driving back just because it was such a nice trip down that way. Though the fact I don't like planes that much does play into that as well :P

fish went well, swimming with the fishes if you know what I mean. I didn't think it would live personally. One of the triops died, and I saw one eating the other, which I didn't interfere with, mostly done anyways.

during a scrimmage I scored a goal :D x50

that was one of the things I wanted to do was score a goal (since I'm on defence that's not too common) but coach put me at striker after I was goalie for ten minutes (our goalie was late). later in the final 1/4 of the game I played defence again.

I was striker for a little more then half the game, got an assist too.

I scored on a header, when a cross was played in on a corner kick. It looked absolutely perfect, I think I heard heavenly music playing in my head as well :P

the fish, which I took from the puddle. Not in a good state what so ever. I put some chemicals in to reduce stress, which is very important. Fortunately the puddle's PH was very high, and when mixed with bottled water (2/3 bottled 1/3 puddle water) yield the same PH as my 55 gallon fish tank, so I took the water from that tank and put in into the 2.5 gallon one I just bought. The other two goldfish that were put into the puddle were dead. I'm guessing the puddle's PH was around 8. The goldfish were probably raised around 7 PH water, too much shock probably.

poor fish...

this one (unnamed)'s tail fin is in pretty bad shape. poor thing




on another note I've come to the conclusion Ideal is trying to kill himself...
by eating so much food :P

he ate another cricket just when I thought "surely he can't eat another one". He proved me wrong... oh, silly mantid...

Ideal, Sprout, and the fish

someone on our soccer team put a few feeder comets (goldfish) into a puddle of water. I debating what I'm going to do... taking them is the first option, but in what, plus he seems a little protective of them, when I touched one. plus what would I do with it? they could grow bigger enough to cause the other fish problems as well. I think they bought the fish just so they could do that too. It really bothers me... (did I mention really?)

Now for Ideal

I think this picture looks better full size, as do most of the ones of the mantises.

Well, I let you imagine what I think about the next one. (actually next three)




the picture pretty much explains itself (I couldn't resist :P)


Sprout didn't give me as much as Ideal. He seems to be more cautious around me then Ideal is, probably due to the fact for Ideal, I've always been around. The first thing I did was feed him, while the first thing I did to Sprout (besides watching him) was catching him.

Ideal: day 75

Phoenix. Swift. Snips. Shorte. Mystery. Stiki. Four unnamed mantids.
Hatchet. Munch. Ideal.

All of these I kept, which makes a total of 12 I tried to raise from little nymph to adulthood. Sprout isn't, but with him that makes 13.
6 from the first, and 6 from the second. (Sprout doesn't count exactly)

Pheonix, Mystery, Stiki, and the four unnamed mantids were all from the first eggsack, of which none survived.

Hatchet, Munch, Ideal, Swift, Snips, and Shorte were from the second container. Hatchet, Ideal, and Munch were ones that didn't fall out when I shook it. the other three were ones that caught my interest by their looks.

As for Sprout the eggsack that he comes from is unknown, but if I had to guess it'd be the first one. I think I spread most of the second one deeper in the ravine, while the first one closer to the house, in particular the spot where I found Sprout, so it's very likely Sprout's from the first one.

Ideal looking around

Ideal sitting tight.

I hate to burst your bubble Ideal, but those fish are not food for you -_-

Ideal climbing up the arm of the chair


Mantis terrarium #2 complete, Ideal moved in at around 12:30 PM. :D

strange I was planning on adding Ideal's age in days, and I was surprised when I saw learned it turned out that Sprout was exactly 75 days old today.

Sprout is either 78 or 75 depending which eggsack he's from, but most likely he's 78.