Friday, September 24, 2010

A fish tale... part 2.

So what was the fate of the PSYCHO shark?  Did he jump out and become a dog treat?  Did he jump out and die of (un)natural causes?  Did I fry him up (with chips, Ms. P.)?  Did I release him in the wild?  Did I flush him?


All of the above were viable options that I either considered, or could have feasibly happened.


BUT, we did the humane thing, and took him to the local pet shop.  Re-homed him if you will.


Now, I will spare you details of how we got him into a five gallon bucket, but will just say that it was not pretty, or dry.  And he was NOT happy to be in the bucket.  Fortunately, I had a lid on it, cause we could hear him jumping around in there.


Back at the pet shop, a couple of the employees peeked at him, and he jumped around when they did.  And they were amazed at his size.  They found a suitable tank, and true to form, when they removed the lid on the bucket, he promptly jumped out onto the floor.  Sheesh!  Will he ever learn?  Does that make him suicidal???


So here he is in his new temporary home.  This is probably about a 35 gallon tank (ours was a 55 gallon), and he is HUGE in there.  One employee said he guess he was about 12 years old.  He was astounded when I said he was less than 4 years old.  Apparently, saving his life periodically equated to "taking really good care of this fish".  And the manager of the shop said he was the largest one she'd ever seen.  


And gave us $20 store credit.  Not bad for a $4.00 investment, 4 years ago.  And the stress is GONE!


It was very therapeutic today to scrub out the tank.  


So all's well that ends well.  He has a new clean home (and someone else to worry about him jumping out) and we have a section of house back that is stress-free!


AMW

Thursday, September 23, 2010

A fish tale...

About 4 years ago, we had the opportunity to get a used fish tank from a friend.  The price was right, and well, we thought it would be fun and relaxing.  And it was....  for a bit.


As you can see, all was well with the world, and things were pretty, and fun, calming.  There was quite the variety, from sharks to barbs to platys to suckers.  You can see the Bala shark in the middle of the pic above.  He's silver with black tips.  About an inch  or so long.


As happens, some fish made it, and some didn't.  Some lasted a loooooooooong time, and some only made it days.  The bala shark was one that lasted a long time.  He's here again in the top left of this pic above.


While most of the fish died off for one reason or another, the sharks held tough.  There was the bala shark, a red-tailed shark, and a rainbow shark.  The red-tailed shark and rainbow shark were both black with red tips on them, but the red-tailed dominated over the rainbow, and kept him confined to one spot.


The bala shark was not aggressive at all, but he kept growing and growing and growing.  Within 3 years, he went from about an inch, to about 8 inches.  He was HUGE in the tank.  


Not a problem, except that during one cleaning, he JUMPED OUT OF THE TANK!  We saved him, and put him back in, but he was never right after that.  He became PSYCHO!


He tried to jump out REGULARLY if you LOOKED at him.  And at times, he succeeded.  And yet, we always got him back in the tank.


Our calming, relaxing tank was now a STRESSFUL side show.  No more cleaning, for fear of the the PSYCHO fish jumping out at you.  You can't look at him, cause he might SNAP and JUMP!


Yes, a FISH is causing this much stress!  And this has been going on for well over a YEAR!


So what do we do????????  What would you do??????


Tune in tomorrow to find out, but I'd love to read your comments as to either what you would do, or what you think we did.......


AMW

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Worlds collide

I'm involved in several hobbies, some indoors and some outdoors.  I've freely talked about quilting here, but usually only mention in passing my love of geocaching.  And I know I've not mentioned pathtags, which is where these two worlds collide.

This is my Log Cabin Block Pathtag!



I trade these within the geocaching community, so that my two loves become one.  


Just wanted to share...............


That's all for now.
AMW

Saturday, September 11, 2010

Still here...

One major event done (last weekend while camping) and one more to go Sunday and Monday.  Then things should get back to somewhat normal.

Until the following week when the painter comes.

So, after that's done, then normal.

At least until I go the Sewing Expo at the end of the month.

THEN normal....


Oh, who am I kidding????  There is no normal schedule around here!  LOL!

But we'll see what pops here in the next week!

AMW

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

We got FLOCKED!

This is what I saw today when I pulled up at home.  I wasn't sure what was going on...  It wasn't anyone's birthday, or anniversary, or retirement, or flag day, or national penguin day...

It is, though, National Trail Mix Day, so maybe that was it.

I parked, and went out to check it out....

Casey decided to help me figure out what was going on...
Nope, not in celebration of National Trail mix day...

Some friends of ours are on a softball team, and are raising funds to get to Las Vegas for a tournament.  Someone "flocks" you, and then you can donate to "flock" someone else, or you can make a donation just for them to remove the flock.  Great idea!


And certainly put a smile on my face when I got home this afternoon.


Off to camp for the holiday weekend, so I'll be MIA for the next few....


AMW