The Wonder of Nature

I had a great weekend this week. Even though I went through a spell of worrying all turned out well. My mother has cancer and was in the hospital. She had a reaction to new chemotherapy. That is cleared up now. She'll go home as soon as her blood count is back up. But enough of that for now. From late Wednesday evening to Thursday afternoon two pairs of my angelfish spawned. So on Saturday morning I saw that the eggs of one pair hatched. I waited nearly all day Saturday for the other clutch of eggs to hatch, but they didn't do so until Sunday morning. Now I am waiting for a third pair to spawn. Right now they can't seem to make up their minds on where to lay their eggs. For the new babies I will have to wait until they are swimming by themselves. At this time they are in a stage called "wiggler." That's all they do right now. Just wiggle. I cannot feed them yet because they are feeding on their yolk sacs. When their yolk sacs are used up they will be able to swim by themselves. Then it's time to feed them after I transferred them to A 2 1/2 gallon tank. I had the eggs hatch in half gallon wide mouth Mason jars with air stones bubbling in them to keep the water turbulent. They need turbulence because stagnancy will only cause them to die.

The parents are already in their separate tanks. They laid their eggs on two by ten inch slates. I take the slates out and place them in the waiting jars. A drop of a solution called acriflavin to keep the eggs from getting fungus. It turns the water into a greenish yellow color. Some angelfish breeders use a solution called methylene blue, but I have always preferred acriflavin. Methylene blue just turns the water blue and just doesn't do any good for me. Even if I used a whole lot. All I have to is put in one drop of the acriflavin and that does the trick!

I will not bore you any further with the technicalities, dear readers. Therefore I will end this blog with a fond good night and see you all soon.

Miss Stanford"s Friend

Here are some of my favorite pictures I have taken recently.

Mourning Dove

Antoinette



Eight Spotted Skimmer Dragonfly

Trees Reflected in Bear Creek

Milkweed and Cattails

Milkweeds and Milkweed Beetle

Wild Plox

Hollyhocksks

Moon Flowers (Flowers from Hell)

Thunderhead Taken 8/30/05

I see hints of green!

Daffodils are in bloom!

A lot of geese on the lake.

There's still a little snow left

There's DEFINITELY a hint of green in a Weeping Willow!


Here's a white duck turned wild.

A little walk on shore.

One fisherman takes advantage of the warm weather.

So does a woman and her dog.


Waiting for Mommy's return!

A SILVER Dragon Lies Beneath!

My inner dragon is to dragons what the Ranger is to humans. I possess considerable intelligence and self-confidence. I live by my own code of ethics and I stick to it at all times. Click the image to try the Inner Dragon Online Quiz for yourself.

My husband's family just buried Uncle Bill yesterday. He was a good man. He had a great sense of humor even to the end. He made the most of his life. He travelled the U.S. with his wife, Ginger until she lost her life to leukemia. He then travelled the world with woman companion named Dodie. He farmed and ranched when he was younger. He was a regular cowboy. He was a great gardener. He liked to make things out of wood. He had a lot of woodworking equipment. He liked to work on antique autos and tractors. His family had a Model B Ford truck with he kept in very good condition. I'll never forget the good times we had with him. Now he is with Ginger in a better place. And in the honor of Bill and Ginger I named a breeding pair of angelfish after them. I am sure they would happy to know that. I always name angelfish pairs after relatives who have passed on. It's my way of remembering them. We will all miss you, Uncle Bill. You are now with your beloved Ginger. We'll all see you again when our time comes. Rest in peace.

Bill Schweger(Center) at his last family get-together.

Something fishy's going on in my basement!
In my fish room, anyway. For the first time in a long time, I have a pair of angelfish spawning! I know some of you are wondering what the hell is this gal talking about? Those who are fish enthusiasts know! For the rest of you guys who are not I can tell you that this is a wondrous act of Nature. I have raised angelfish for the twenty-some years. You can ask the priestess of nothing about what her folks used to be into. I once was a member of the Colorado Aquarium Society. Now back to the angels spawning. Mommy Fish looked like she swallowed a fish-sized basketball. So I provided a 2X12 inch piece of slate in her and Daddy Fish's aquarium. After a while she laid her eggs on the slate and Daddy fertilized them. They took turns. She laid. He sprayed. When I got ready to take away the slate they pitched a fit and wanted to peck me! No way would they let me take away their eggs! I won out in the end. I placed the slate in a jar of water that had been treated with a solution to keep the eggs from getting fungus. Hopefully in a couple of days There will be some wriggling little babies no bigger than the head of a pin!. I could have Mommy and Daddy take care of them, but there might be a chance they might eat them. So I find artificial hatching a lot better. If I can I'll try to take a picture of them as they develop. I'm keeping watch on the other angel fish I have to see if more fish "pair off." I have schools of angelfish! Most of them I raised from babies myself. Now I have plans! I have at least 30 fish tanks!

I'm a beader! This is a new hobby I just recently started. Two years ago I decided I wanted to learn how to make jewelery. So nowadays you can see me frequently visiting Micheal's and Hobby Lobby stores. I will occasionally shop at the local bead store. Even though I have fun doing it, it gets frustrating when I accidentally drop the whole strand and my beads fly EVERYWHERE!!! I have to get up and try to find them all! Then I have to start all over again! ARRRRGH!!!

Here's my craft table. The three Capt Hook dolls are my mascots. Hence the nickname, "Codfishlady!

Here are two of my latest creations.

Here I used my flash to make them show up .

I had recently obtained several pounds of assorted beads from a gal through e-Bay. With some of them I made this bracelet.

This is my "Jingle Bell" necklace. I used jingle bells and candy cane beads.

Left to Righy: Crystal; Red, White and Blue; Miscellaneous necklaces.

All I did was take some beading wire ( Two 6" lengths), clear AB beads (Aurora Borealis) and some size 6 seed beads.

Crystal (Top) and Bronco (Bottom) earrings.

You ask if I sell them? Only if you want. For the earrings alone I charge $10.00. Necklaces are $15.00. Bracelets are $12.00 each. A set of earrings with a matching necklace will be $25.00. E-mail me at marshapurser@comcast.net with your request and mailing address if you would like to purchase any of my jewelery. Please let me know on what color scheme you would like.