That said, the recent days have not been all bright and technicolor sunshine. In fact, they have been full of folly and misadventure, but now I am able to laugh and blog about them as opposed to throwing a tantrum and getting derailed.
What follows is some but by no means all of my oops in the last few days.
The Amphibian Habitat
In attempting to create a habitat for my frogs that would have an area for them to swim and yet allow me to use the other parts of the aquarium for dry land use as in the toad's world and the cricket bin. It was a toss up between crickets and mealworms but then I remembered I have one more 8 foot aquarium underneath.
I planned to simply cut out a bit of plexi to cover the slots at the bottom of the tank that allow water to pass through the entire aquarium. I'd just glue it down and call it a day.
Attempt 1--Leakage
I slapped down a second piece of plexi and lots more glue.
Attempt 2--Less Leakage
Now I would probably usually take a razor blade and carefully remove all the silicone and the plexi and start all over. This time I have decide to take the messier, "don't know a knot, use a lot", a "sledge hammer will fix this" type approach. Because I'm way too busy, it's for toads, tadpoles and crickets, it wasn't leaking that much anyway, and it will all get covered up with sand and dirt anyway. Plus if it leaks it will simply leak into a terrarium first and then into newpaper and shredded egg cartons where the crickets are. No harm no foul.
But certainly not my best work.
The Pond
The koi pond has fallen onto hard times as of late. No fish have died, its just been getting full of algae, pretty messy, the water's not too clear and the water falls have both stopped working. The side small pond hasn't worked for months and has been as of late a breeding ground for mosquitoes.
The other day I came up with some ideas in the less is more school and decided to change things up. That is all well and fine. That is not the oops.
Less is more.
The oops came when I invited the chickens to come hang out with me while I worked. Only to have them make a mad scramble for the styro bits and silicone "worms".
"Automatic" watering systems
I've got most the yard on drip irrigation and automatic watering set-ups, although most need major tweaking and maintenance that I have been putting off for far too long. I've been able to because its been cool and wintery, relative to our local seasons that is.
So I found it a bit odd how poorly my cilantro and pepper plant were doing. I'd push the start button, here a click and hop back to work.
Never realizing until yesterday that the water valve going into the unit had been switched off some time ago. Oops
The Too Green Greenhouse
I set up a couple of little seed starting kits. In the past my forays into starting from seed have ended up in me over-watering and mold setting in. Not this time.
I watered these guys once at the beginning and yet still mold formed. That's not the oops that is the learning curve.
The oops was in my rushed response to ventilate the little kits I also took away their identifying packets. Something I could have probably dealt with had they all not been melons. So I won't be sure whether the vine is an Icebox watermelon or the Big Max pumpkin until .......
The On-going Fertile Egg/Incubation Fiasco
Determined not to repeat my last failed efforts at egg hatching, I got a second and third thermometer and a second barometer to place in different areas to get a more accurate average reading.
Things did not go as well as I had hoped. The thermometers had wildly different readings, I don't know if one is broke or whether the tempeture in the incubator varies so much,(which could explain some things) So I moved them around a bit, tinkered with the thermostat and have ended up having readings from 85F to 105F.
I don't see chicks in the future. But who knows?
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