Changing the flow

On June 12, 2021 By CarynIn fish

My youngest has a small fish tank that has a very strong current. We tried tanks without aeration and filtration, but they really do give the poor fish a short lifespan. We put guppies in the tank, which do well, and are pretty, but struggle against the flow of the filter especially when they are small or have any difficulty swimming. When we lost the last guppy (there is also a snail, which does really well in the tank), I decided to see what I could do to break up the current. I cut off the top of the pineapple house with a band saw, sanded the edges smooth, and took two plastic mesh tubes (from buying wine bottles, those net sleeves? Very useful to keep around), and set those up around the intake for the filter. I used two nets and offset them to reduce the chance of a fish slipping through.

We then put guppies in the tank and it seems to be working. The fish have a larger area to swim, and don’t seem to struggle constantly with the flow (although the output from the filter’s waterfall does still impact their rhythm when they go through, but it doesn’t seem distressing). The filter pump is still working well and water flows through the system. Now we see how the little pond does long term.

Guppies swimming freely in the tank with the new flow disruptor installed

Kid bucket-list item

On June 11, 2021June 7, 2021 By CarynIn Craft

Growing up with a gluten-free Mom has meant that my kids have never had home-made play dough. I never had gluten containing flours in the house. (Although they were provided a steady supply of the manufactured kind, so no real hardship.) Until now. We used the Heritage Wheat to make play dough and color it with gel colors following this recipe. This is NOT the way to make play dough cheaply, as the Heritage Wheat is not inexpensive, but it was quite interesting to actually make it (I didn’t realize it had to be cooked), and the texture is more satisfying than the canned variety. They had the most fun kneading it.

Checking the trail cam

On June 10, 2021June 8, 2021 By CarynIn photography, Wildlife

Oops. It has been so wet that I have not ventured down to the valley to check the trail cam in two months. There were over 900 pictures on the camera and the batteries were almost dead! There was also a round yellow spider egg sac situated right over the camera lens.

Possum sort of visible at the edge of the egg sac

Luckily, the occlusion was deposited only about a week ago, so there were plenty of pictures without a giant fuzzy spot, mostly of raccoons, cats, opossums, and armadillos, with the occasional leg of fox or coyote.

I suspect this is a pregnant raccoon. She is rather rolly.

Snake show

On June 9, 2021 By CarynIn Wildlife

(I figured I would spell it out in the title so those disinclined toward serpents could skip this post.) My eagle-eyed eldest spotted something in the backyard and informed me that there was a snake out there eating something. I grabbed the snake grabber and went to investigate, but it was just a plain bellied water snake eating a toad, no venomous beastie (I did get the ID from the experts on “What Snake is This? North Texas Educational Group on FB). I’m a little sad for the toad, as we seem to be down to one backyard toad and one garage toad, but it was really cool to watch the snake. We kept the dogs inside as the snake lay by our patio table waiting for the toad to deflate so it could finish the process of swallowing it. We would check on it at intervals (and take pictures), and finally the poor pups couldn’t cross their legs anymore so we put them on leashes to go do their business. The snake, full and sluggish, eventually slid out of the yard. It took two hours, but the serpent was eventually able to finish its very large meal!

Plain Bellied Water Snake eating a Gulf Coast Toad

Plain Bellied Water Snake with Gulf Coast Toad legs hanging out of it’s mouth

Whole wheat rolls

On June 8, 2021June 5, 2021 By CarynIn Bread

I bought Paul Hollywood’s “100 Great Breads” book. (I think I’ve mentioned before that I am a huge fan of The Great British Baking Show.) I wanted to use Heritage Wheat (both the bread mix and the whole wheat flour) to make rolls for burgers (calling them hamburger buns doesn’t seem appropriate), so selected a simple wholemeal recipe, then divided it into eighths instead of forming a long loaf. They turned out quite well, and were well appreciated by the whole family! Although I could have made them smaller. They rather dwarfed the burgers.