Catch up Post 6 – last “catch up” post. End of April, First few days of May events.

Hi.  Blogs tend to put things backwards, with the first thing posted at the bottom of the page.  If you have not read the posts labeled “Catch up post 1” through “Catch up post 5”  please do so first.  :) (Well you don’t *have* to but IMHO it would be easiest). 

Alright I think I’m about caught up.   Here is what’s been happening most recently. 

[note written from May 3rd to May 6th]

Garden:  My landscaper finally was able to cut the front yard.  He has taken out two dead bushes in the back and cut the boards for my new garden bed.  He has them laid out but not attached yet.  --- because it snowed – again!   It’s mostly melted now (May 3rd) but he is behind on other projects and won’t be able to finish mine until (maybe) this Sunday.  – Update – he should be in my yard working as I type this. (May 6th)

I think I mentioned I finally planted my lettuce and other similar seeds – did that on Monday 4/29 – then I put my Onion sets in Tuesday. 

I am behind with my seeds though.   I planted my tomato seeds over the weekend of the 27th- 28th – and they are sprouting already which is about what I expected.  (May 3rd)  I have one where I somehow put 4 seeds in the pot – I will trim that down to two.   They were barely sprouting in the morning, and by evening they already were over 2” high.   I hate when they do that.  But tomatoes seem to be more hardy and they haven’t fallen over – yet.    I need to re-arrange them a bit though.   Even though the room gets very bright with sun – I think they still will follow the window and I should put a more direct light closer to them.   I have since put my bearded dragon’s light over them.  Will add extra light sources later.

I also planted moonflower and morning glory and nasturtium seeds that are already coming up. 

 (May 2nd) I FINALLY planted the lettuce etc inside.  These are my “extra in case” plantings.

I planted the rest of my herbs and flowers over this past weekend – May-4th-5th. I hope to have a few weeks of plants started before I plant them outside – most likely on or around Memorial day.

Spiders:  My favorite tarantula seller recently acquired some Avaculara geroldi, a species I’ve been looking for since the one I had died in 2010. (Right before I moved into my new house.)  He answered my initial email asking how many he had (4!), but then surprisingly didn’t answer my follow up email.  I wasn’t sure if he’d hold them, so I went ahead and ordered them, along with another species I’ve been wondering about.   I got 2 of the A. geroldi and 1 of this other species.   Later I found out he was doing a show in CA, which is why he was slower to follow up on emails.  It also may mean that he did not pack them – but someone else did – when they were sent out on Monday.  (April 29th)  When I opened them Tuesday, I unfortunately found that both the A. geroldi did not make it.  :(   The other spider was fine.   I immediately took pictures and emailed him.   We have been going back and forth a bit, but it sounds like he is going to send replacements – this coming Monday.  (Got the tracking a little earlier)   So I hope and pray I get them ok this time.  

Reptiles:  Wednesday (May 1) evening I pulled out my cell phone to call my landscaper and let him know I had a payment for him.  I discovered I had a VM so I checked it.  Turned out it was from my vet--- reminding me of an appointment I had set up for May 2 – Thursday.  :O  I had completely forgot about it. 

First, I called and left a message for my vet – letting them know I had forgotten and I needed to check with my boss to see if I could get a couple hours off.   Then,  Thursday I checked with my boss to make sure I could leave at 3… I let her know I had forgotten about the appt.   She said sure.  So I called my vet to tell them I’d be in.

Even leaving at 3 I was late.  (Was supposed to be there at 4:20 – got there at 4:30)   - Of course this was because I had to pack everyone.   I took 4 ball pythons, 7 garter snakes and my bearded dragon. 

Everybody seems to be fine.  Mordox – the bearded dragon – is older (11 years) and is starting to lose muscle mass in his hind legs.  – My vet mentioned that they could do blood tests now.  So we did that.  She called me with the results this morning (Mon the 6th) – and his numbers came back fine, except of course for lower protein figures.   He won’t always eat.  Sometimes I have to hand feed him now.  I most likely will have to give him a supplement – brushed or smeared on his favorite greens.  (Collards – which I’m trying to grow.)    The new BP I got was confirmed female by my vet – she did a probe.  We may re-do the sexing when the snake gets older.   I am concerned though, she has only eaten once in my care.  I was really happy when she took a frozen thawed rat pup 4-5 days after I bought her at Repticon (April the 6th) – lets see I’d have fed her that wed – so the 10th.   But I haven’t been able to get her to eat since then.

I tried FTs twice and this past Sat – after the vet gave her a vit B stimulus shot on Thursday – I tried a pre-killed.   She didn’t even try – didn’t follow it or anything.   I realized now that it’s been almost a month since she ate.   – Now BPs are notorious for fasting.  Suddenly not eating for 3 or 4 months.   I’ve had other snakes (garters) do that before – and of course Mordox the bearded dragon does that.

The thing that bothers me is she is a year old and about 280 grams and I’d like her to weigh more before deciding on a fast.    I don’t know how often her original owner/breeder fed her.  He said at the show 2 weeks – but now I’m wondering.    She is still in her original shoebox where she supposedly spent all her live so far.  I’m going to try to set her up in a larger cage with better heating and hope that  that helps her appetite. 

Ok I can’t think of anything else right now.

Outstanding/ongoing  projects:  New garden area;  lattice work; tomato area; plant stuff outside for May.  Weed, weed, weed, weed.   Set up cage for snake.  Fix up spider room.  Catch up with cleaning.

Outstanding issues: Replacement spiders, snake that won’t eat, cat pictures to J, replies from Romo cat club about July cat show (TICA) & from CFA peeps about car pooling for June Awards.