I do not approve of (non-professionals) releasing adult or even juvenile captive-bred turtles ( Read more... )

The greenhouse came late last night. I just spent an hour or so wrestling with it to get it up. As many others have commented, the instructions are not very clear. The biggest problem was the the instructions do not say that the tension poles have to be bowed in order to get them into their slots and that they will stay bowed once the greenhouse ( Read more... )

Yikes, we just brought the turtles in. I had a hard time finding Rex and Al didn't want to come to the surface. I finally got Rex to move a bit so I could find him, and then I had to reach into the pond to get Al. Almost froze my hand off.

Then we covered the garden with blankets.

I went outside and found the pond in the low 60s. The heating pump just can't keep up with the weather. I checked the forecast and today's high is supposed to be 69- way too cold! So I dug out the greenhouse plastic to cover half the pond.

I was pleased to find that I have enough to cover half the pond and cover half of Rex's pen. So, both ( Read more... )

I find myself having the same anxiety this time of year that I had last time of year: should I or should I not hibernate Rex ( Read more... )

More trying to distract myself today. I came home from school and worked in the garden a little bit.

- I harvested some eggplants and cut the plant back a little bit.

-I staked up the snow peas with the stakes that tothwolf loaned me. I need to add some more pea plants, a few of the seedlings did not make it. Same with the spinach ( Read more... )

The goldies have finally begun thinning the plants in the pond- today I saw visibly less plant cover. So I guess I will start feeding them goldfish food. I think a twice a week feeding should be good- after all, they are also eating Al's leftovers and algae, pond plants, etc. I will also start giving them veggies. Most people overfeed their ( Read more... )

I found the ammonia testing kit (for some reason which surely made sense to me at the time, I had stowed it in the laundry room) and did a test. I am having a slight ammonia spike, but it is really minuscule: the ammonia is higher than 0ppm but less than .25ppm. I am going to keep an eye on it but at this point i am not worried. If it gets ( Read more... )

So Al is not totally over being angry at me- whenever I put my hands in the pond today he comes up to me and if I don't move my hands he tries to bite my fingers. Little bastard.

He's still ignoring the goldfish. Not even chasing them!

Things are improving in the pond. This morning Al was talking to me again. Also, when I fed him, the mfish came out to eat, which they had not done since the goldies moved in. The largest, adult mfish are really cute, with frilly fins, and very tame, but when the goldies first moved in they hid for a few days. Big fish are a little scary when ( Read more... )