this is Freya

On Friday, my neighbor brought us this cat, and asked us to temporarily care for it. She told us it was thrown out of a moving car on the highway. I don’t understand how someone could do such a thing- this is the sweetest, most friendly cat ever. 

We set her up in our spare bedroom and noticed right away she had quite a large belly on a small frame. I suspected she was pregnant and mentioned it to the neighbor, who immediately said oh no, her friend who was interested wouldn’t want a pregnant cat. But it only took us one day to fall in love with her and want to keep her ourselves. 

We took her to a vet and they did x-rays -no broken bones!- and confirmed yes, she was expecting four or five kittens. Her paws are scraped up and she had a small cut near one eye, but otherwise seems okay. I’m sure she’s bruised and sore though. 

Then drove her to animal control because we felt obligated to report the incident, and thought someone might be looking for her (as the person who threw her out of a car may not have been the owner). She was scanned several times- no microchip. After a lot of discussion the shelter agreed to support us in fostering the kittens, get them all vaccinated and fixed, and then after the babies are weaned and up for adoption, we can officially adopt Freya. 

Upon coming home from the vet and shelter visit she spent the whole next day chilling in the carrier- I thought she might want to keep her kittens in there but also set up several other places for her to choose from. 

She ended up having her kittens on the guest bed- in the wee hours of Wednesday morning. She didn’t have four or five kittens- she had six! But the smallest one didn’t make it through the night. 

Next morning (or rather, later that same morning after we’d all tried to get a few hours’ sleep) she was still on the bed with them. I thought she would have moved them already. She greeted us, jumped down to eat the food I offered, then went to a box I’d put next to the bed, sat in it and meowed at me. She looked up at her kittens on the bed, looked at me, meowed again. I didn’t think she’d want me to handle them on the very first day, but also thought hey, it’s an opportunity to get their birth weight so I got the digital kitchen scale, one by one took their weights and set them in the box with mom. She settled right down with them. 

I’ve had cats most of my life (aside from college years) but never before kittens in the house!

end of the buces

these were among the last of my blue buce 'selena' (and a few others I didn't know the names of)

halfway

My 33L is about half empty now- 

it's mostly just vals and crypts left. 

and some bolbitis fern- I did always love the bolbitis

The largest one was starting to do poorly in the spare 20H tank- where I had a spotlight on it to show people, but it wasn't getting any indirect sun. 

So I moved it into a bin by the window. Easy enough to move it back into the empty show tank if needed.

Yesterday I sold off the rest of the buces and anubias- including some very tiny ones (buce 'green wavy' on the left here and anubias nana 'pangolino' on the right):

This was one of my prize plants, even though it had some leaves marred with algae- a nice clump of anubias 'pangolino'. I never got it to do that characteristic overlapping scale look with the leaves, but still I thought it an attractive specimen.

And this was one of my tiniest plants- I think it's anubias nana petite- as that's one I originally got as a tissue culture, and this has the clumpy growth habit typical of those.

I did try to look back on my record here and figure out the names of all the plant varieties I had, but lost the mental energy to track them all down. Glad that I found a few local people who like me just wanted to grow pretty or interesting plants in their aquariums, not so hung up on the actual names and rarity or whatnot. So I've had some happy customers, even a few people who came back for more plants, and I hope to move the rest of them within a week or two.

I do have more pictures but that's enough for now.

the 33L

is slowly emptying out. I have been selling the plants. After that rough, quick full tank shot, I tried to get a better one by making a composite of three separate photos (click for larger view):

and then things started to go out the door. It looks quite empty now, mostly just vals and small crypts left. I've been sad to see some of the plants go- the little pieces of wood with subwassertang and buce clinging to them

- this one had a bolbitis fern.

The beautiful little pearly leaves- here was one of my few clumps of Buce 'brownie'.

Didn't realize I still had bits of anubias pangolino in here until I started taking the scape apart- some were hidden behind or under other plants- so small but it's a rare one so I've gotten good prices for them.

In contrast this was my large, thriving anubias barteri- 

I was sad to see that one go too

My favorites were always the Buce 'Selena' and I was glad several people were very happy to get some from me- one person even came back for more after seeing how blue they looked in his tank.

I had so many more bucephalandra but I'd forgotten many of the names since I added them to my tank (or rather, the betta tank I used to have) more than a decade ago- and trying to go back here and find their identities was rather futile.

I will miss them. Ironically, I've been putting more care into this tank (and various containers where I've put plants for people to look at) now for the sale, than I did for my poor fish in the past few weeks of his life. I feed badly for that. Sorry to Tucker.

Should have worked harder for him. 

the beans

are coming on quickly, more and more. I have to pick every few days to stay ahead of them!

I do have one cherry tomato plant- I thought both had died but this one was just smaller for a while and then it grew up winding among the others so I forgot it was there. It's not very productive. However the sweet 100's and the cherokee purples, are my only tomatoes that are doing well at all.

All the big ones seem afflicted. The skin feels thicker or coarse and grainy, and some have dark cracks and when I slice them hoping to just cut away the bad half, too much inside is rotted black to save any. There are small dark stink bugs about, I am not sure if they are the culprit.

And something has done away with nearly all my swiss chard! I swear I had six plants on that side, and then one day it was down to three- I assumed the others had got rotted or eaten by the insects, rabbits. Today I went out there and there's only one. Not even a root stump remainder of the others.

Odd thing is- the leaf beet chard in the other bed is untouched- well, except for a few bug holes. I cut a whole bunch today for a dinner recipe, and half the bed is still green.

Collards are also doing poorly, between whatever is turning the blue leaves purple (a deficiency I think), whitefly and cabbage moth caterpillars riddling the leaves. I cut a bunch to eat the other day anyway, just wash it well and cut out the worst of the insect damage.

Cut a lot of the small young leaves as well, just to get them ahead of the bugs!

We are finally putting up the garden fence. Got the posts in today, before it was too hot, and then thunderstorms came through. Will have to finish setting the wire on another day. I've been laying cardboard and mulch over more of the grass paths, after cutting it short as possible. It's starting to look purposeful.

purple green beans

I guess I was just not patient enough with my purple-podded green beans. Started picking some last night and found plenty! Well enough for a good side dish. I've grown these in years past but still get a kick out of watching them turn green when cooking. It's like a little magic trick. (Doesn't impress anyone else here anymore though).

an end

I have sad news. It was actually so upsetting I never sat down to write about this until now. About a month ago, my paradise fish Tucker died. He had been unwell for several weeks already- hanging listless at the water surface, eating a bit and nothing else. Poor color, no interest in anything. Sometimes he didn't even want to eat. Honestly I made no attempt to cure him. I did not know what ailed him, I simply don't have the mental energy now to deal with trying to diagnose, medicate and extra-upkeep a sick fish. He was probably close to six years old, I'd had him for over five. That's a good long life for a fish! and now he rests under a stump in my backyard, on the edge of the flower bed near Miss Beautiful.

I had not taken any photos of the aquarium in some time, but here is a quick full tank shot. I am in the process of dismantling it, re-homing the snails, and selling all the plants, equipment, etc. It's feels kind of dismal that the year when my tank finally feels well-established, and looks like what I had first envisioned so long ago, is when I feel done with it.

Surprise- there was one Amano shrimp still alive in there! After all these years! He hid very well from Tucker. A real survivor. No idea how old this shrimp is, probably six to eight years. He went to live in somebody else's tank of shrimps last night. That was something, to see the little critter scurrying around again.

Bye, little shrimp.

Have a good end of life elsewhere.