• Creatures,  Ramblings

    It Ain’t Been so Easy but I Guess I Shouldn’t Complain

    This is Oliver. He joined the herd March 28th. He came from the same breeder as Silas, Tesco, and Barnaby but was in a far less acceptable condition when they brought him to us. His horns are flaking, the tip of his ear had been bitten off, the hair on his ears is thin, he’s missing top coat hair on his sides (that pale area is just the undercoat showing), his hooves were fully grown over, and he was tragically thin. I don’t want to speak poorly about this breeder publicly, however public something no one sees can be, but if you live in Montana, are thinking about getting goats,…

  • Creatures,  Hobbies,  Ramblings

    Not a Sound

    Montana’s spring is basically winter-lite. It was still snowing went we went out yesterday, though luckily the storm dissipated before reaching our location. Thankfully, the weather app tells me it should be getting a little warmer now. That means we can finally start properly heading out to explore the world without big wool jackets and survival packs. As I just mentioned, yesterday we packed our bikes, the dogs, forty-seven bottles of water, a few Bobo’s Oat Bars, and headed to some mountains not far from where we live – which is what anyone through the entire western side of Montana can say about mountains, really. Levee, our cattledogshepherdmix, is overly-nourished.…

  • Creatures,  Hobbies,  Ramblings

    I Know You Want to Know But

    Our new aquarium light arrived. It brightens everything up, as it’s supposed to do, you know, being a light. I’m sure the plants love it. However, I do not. It’s pretty. The top is aluminum, and the legs are clear acrylic. The aluminum gets toasty, so it’s best used somewhere that air can circulate around it freely. Don’t shove it into a hutch cubby or something. Or do. I’m not your mother. The light itself sits at a set height of approximately four inches and reflects strongly off the top of the water as multi-colored, making it difficult to view into the top of the aquarium at all, and it…

  • Creatures,  Hobbies,  Ramblings

    A Fresh Chance to Start Right

    Okie doles, as my phone likes to auto-correct. There is now another tank in the house. The ten gallon I may or may not have mentioned ordering is now set up on a relatively unstable shelf in our living room. I am not talented when it comes to aquascaping. Perhaps if I had rooms of rocks and sticks available to choose from, I could do something more elaborate. As it is, we have to choose from what’s on the shelf at our tiny aquarium shop and try to visualize the look without the tank to use for sizing things properly. I do believe if I owned a shop, I’d have…

  • Creatures,  Hobbies,  Ramblings

    Place Your Bets on the Limits of a Beast’s Appetite

    It started with Esme, one little female betta. Now we have Esme, two loaches, four green tetras, four ember tetras, five shrimp, two gold mystery snails, a greenish-purple mystery snail, three purple mystery snails, a baby mystery snail who hitched a ride home on a plant we purchased, an unknown snail who is growing at an astonishing pace who also hitched a ride home on a plant, aaaaaaand 9,320,473,324 pest snails who must have been hiding on the plants we purchased for the plant tank. It’s just overrun with itty bitty snail babies. I can’t say with any certainty, because they’re still a little too small, but they’re looking a…