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.

Hatchet: Final shots.

Hatchet a few hours before I attempted the preservative measure, a few hours before death. Probably 3-4 hours before death. I wasn't particularly interested in a look good shot, for obvious reasons. I took them as a log of his size, for when he died. The first one is the best, and the second one is the last, and best on showing size in Metric units.




a picture of Sprout eating his first fly today. (yes, first. I was took a chunk of time to feed/ care for the mantises today. A result of the obvious... Yesterday it was geared towards finding another one, to no avail...).



Sprout's last molt did something, I'm not sure what happened but I know what you see above isn't what it's supposed to look like. His abdomen sags, brought down with gravity. The point where it does this is right behind the part where the wings will grow out of when the final molt is completed. And I think Sprout only has one more left. I'm not sure what will happen when he does molt. It is worrisome. Unlike the other two years where I've been unsuccessful in getting an adult mantis I have more then one, not only that I have a possible source for adult mantises. We went to Jack's aquarium (we were going to go to a different one, but I remembered that mom had said one of the people at Jack's aquarium had said something about tons of praying mantises on the back door). If he finds one I'll know. It'd be an adult since it's quite obvious after seeing where he found them, that to get there they'd have to fly there. Probably drawn by the light, and the other bugs around it. I just don't feel good about my odds of getting a pair out of two mantises, plus the fact I don't know if I'll even get an adult none the less two adults.

Now there's something you don't see every day. It appears to be a mating pair of parasitic wasps.

pictures of Ideal, who I let climb on a chair, since I wanted to get a good picture of him, which is difficult since he just keeps moving whenever he's in my hand. It did the trick, he stopped at the top of it and I got to take some better pictures of him. He sure lives up to his name... love the contrast he has, especially between his head, and his eyes. My favorite, now at least... (I raised him from the beginning, Sprout I didn't otherwise it may be different). I think I liked Hatchet more though, but obviously the situation has changed...




As a side note, at Jack's aquarium I got two dozen crickets (for the mantises, as flys are getting harder to find), a ten gallon glass aquarium (the intention is to make in into a second Mantis terrarium, for Ideal), a reptile lid for that ten gallon aquarium (works for mantises too), and a 2.5 gallon aquarium (for triops possibly, if not then probably for any potential guppy babies in the future).