October already?...

               I feel like changing things up a bit. So, It's October already!! Time is sure flying. I can't believe how fast the year has gone. 2 more months after this and we are going to find ourselves in the dreaded year 2012. *Scarey ghost noise* Who ever came up with the world ending next year, and those that believe whomever it was that started this, really needs to see a doctor and get their reality checked. Just because the Mayans predicted Noah's flood and other worldly disasters does not mean this one will be ever more true. Get a grip. :D


          Rabbit trail!! I am helping my landscaping classes set up a plant booth area type dealio this afternoon at the state fair. Should be plenty exciting! I'll let ya'll know how it goes, and I'll be posting pictures!
                            Another rabbit trail. I have this 20 gallon fish tank that I acquired several months back. As the name implies, I had fish. :D But I am now bored with freshwater fish. All that they do is swim back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, and maybe back again, if not further forth. So, I am in the middle of a new project with said tank. SALT WATER!! Gonna try that out and see how it goes. I'm really rather excited. More-so than I was with the guppies. (I hate guppies).

Blue Mandarin Fish

 

Purple Firefish

          That little fish is one that I will hopefully be able to keep alive in my tank. He is a cute little bugger, but I've heard they are bloody difficult to keep alive. Wish me luck though!

Christmas tree worms

Zoanthids

            


          Hopefully the firefish  too I will be successful with. Only time will tell. So far my tank is cycling, and I have nearly 6 more weeks of waiting before I can even begin to think about putting a fish in. I also need to set up a refugium to grow brine shrimp in for my little fishies. At least I will have something to do to keep me occupied for the next couple of days, maybe. Another thing that I am going to have to look into is a new light fixture so I can have soft coral in my tank.


             Those there are the soft corals that I will probably be looking into. As for the christmas tree worms, I still have to look into the up keep but with the help of two of my friends who also deal with salt water, I will be able to figure something out :) Everything is still in the early planning stages, so anything can happen. For the time being, I will just continue to set up the live rock for my tank (helps establish the tank for the little fish), and create the refugium for my feeder shrimp, which are the tiniest things you could ever see!!

 

Brine shrimp

              Anyways, That is about it for this post. Ya'll have a good one!!

          -Nomers

Wait...When did flowers grow peas?

             A week ago (9/9/11) I went on a class trip to a plant show about two hours away from the college campus that I attend. While I was there I found a tricolor ginger plant that I just fell in love with. Of course I bought it and very nearly had it lost to my grasp when a man won a door prize for the booth (where my plant was residing) and had chosen to take the ginger plant.

Tricolor Ginger

Penta

 

 

 

                        When I talked to the man that was overseeing the booth, he chased down the winner, explained the situation, and quickly returned the pretty multicolored thing to my possession. Before we (my classmates, teacher, and I) left, the man came up to me and plopped a pot of Penta flowers in my hands as thanks for not being upset about the predicament.

Tersa Sphinx Caterpillar

                          Now, two days ago (9/15/11) I removed the dead foliage from my cute flower plant. Also, failing to state earlier, I have my Penta in my bathroom, having no where else to put it. Going to the part of the story that I have been dying to tell, earlier I found a caterpillar perched on my flowers. This normally would not surprise me, had the plant been outside or even in the living room, but this plant is IN MY BATHROOM!! Imagine the look on my face when I did a quadruple take, thinking that my flowers could not be growing a pea pod. Being the naturally curious person I am, I reached out to grab it and instead of the hard husk that is normally the casing of a pea pod that I was expecting, I felt a squishy softness under my fingers and then to just blow my mind away completely, the thing started swinging its head back and forth like a club!! That is definitely not a normal behavior for a pea pod! I went straight to the computer (after showing my uncle, who is the only other person in the house at the moment, my discovery) and started doing some heavy duty research, trying to figure out what this crazy little bugger was. It has a little stinger on its tail end, six brown spots going down each of its sides, and two very large, round, black eye spots on what I thought at first was its club like head.

Tersa Sphinx Hummingbird Moth

                                     That there is my new buddy, the Tersa Sphinx Hummingbird Caterpillar. If I want it to cocoon and turn into the Moth, it will quite quickly devour the foliage of my plant and 10 to 12 days from then will turn into the Moth it was born to be! And as an added plus to this unexpected surprise, my plant will survive its taxing ordeal to flower another day!












                                           Overall, I am rather pleased that I have an opportunity to raise a caterpillar. I really hope it lives through this thing because I don't know if I will get another chance to try again. Sometimes I forget that life does not always have a redo button, if it ever did in the first place. Wish my luck, and I will keep updates on how the little bugger is doin.

                                                ~Nomers~