Woah....Wow....

I do not know where to begin. It has been more than 130 days since my last post. Although that may not sound like so many, wait 'till you hear all the things that have happened to me since then. I have done so much, and so much has happened to me in those few months that if I actually sit down and think about it, I think my head would start spinning, and not stop spinning until next October. Since my last post,

1. I have finished my first year at Sacred Heart
2. grew another half shoe size
3. gotten a puppy
4. gotten my own bedroom after having shared one all my life, woohoooo!
5. become an honors piano student
6. made at least 20 new friends
7. gotten a bunny rabbit (Benjamin Bunny)
8. gotten my learners permit and am 3 weeks away from my license
9. sprained my anckle 2 less times than I would normally
10. stopped doing crew (so that I can now be in the Respect for Life club at school, take up another elective, web design, participate in orchestra, and schola)
11. figured out a balance between homework and puppy time
12. been so busy with Rhetorical analysis for Lit that I have let a cake burn for a good half hour
13. Become an irreversable Bio freak
14. Making a website for school
15. Gotten a Camera for my microscope


16. Gone to Italy
17. Come back again
18. entered my second year in Sacred Heart
19. Become a Junior
20. Decided that class rings were ugly and expensive, so did not get one
21. Am no longer daunted by Upperclassmen, because I am one
22. Have two little sisters (my own, and the one they gave me at school throught big-and-little-sister's program) Both my little sisters are taller than me...hmmm.....
23. Learned that "House" is the name of a TV show, and that is the Name of the guy who is some sort of crazy doctor in the show, but have no idea about anything other than that
24. Decided that it is not worth trying to understand why I am given a trimest test question that says "Is it moral to cheat on a test? Why or why not?"
25. Cannot fathom how the Planned Parenthood corporation can be advocating for Catholics to take their "pro-choice" stand and sign a petition to allow a bill to be passed that says that their company can be founded by our tax dollars

Each of these 25 things are huge changes in my life. If 25 big things happened in just 3 months, at that rate, 100 New, big changes will have bombarded me within the next 9 months. Woah...Wow....

I'm sorry

I'm sorry guys, SInce I partially constructed this template, and I don't know the first thing about HTML, I am having some difficulties with picture sizes. Hopefully I can figure it out so that the picture sizes are normal....

The Managerie

Last week I went to a reptile expo and aquired five new animals.

Two Fire belly toads, Two BLue Azures Dart Frogs. and one Leopard Gecko.







The ear Drum is Clearly visible on the side of the head.

Canoe Trip

Last week my family and some freinds went canoeing on the Husitonic in Kent, Ct. It was a mild day, mostly sunny, and about 70 degrees. Apart from the animals which I have described below, I saw some interesting small birds which I could not photograph.

The Great Blue Heron is the largest heron in North America, and because it is so adaptable with its diet, it is also very widespread throught the U.S. They can be seen during the day, wading near the shoreline and stalking their prey, which can consist of nearly anything, such as amphibians, fish, insects and other birds (believe it or not!). Although they are mostly diurnal (active by day), they can also be seen active durring night, foraging for food, or simply waiting for it to pass by. Because these herons are not very picky about what they eat, some have actually choked on prey that is too large for them. Interestingly, groups of herons can be called by many different names. Some are "battery", "pose", and "rookery", but my favorite is "a hedge of herons"!

And of course there are Canada Geese everywhere you look, even in unwanted places, such as airplane tarmacs...but here they are cute and not worisome.

Here is a butterfly we found, but I can't find what type it is.

And then a very tiny bug which flew onto my hand just as we were leaving.

Ducklings

Ducklings

Dear Diary,
Today I am in bed because I just had surgery on my foot. I can hear a Redstart twittering near my window. In fact, I just saw him, with his bright red and dark, dark black feathers, a fiery flash past my window. But another noise I can hear is the sound of four, fluffly, tiny, cute ducklings! They are peeping and cheeping and pecking and scratching downstairs in their box. One of them is a very small, but special duck, and here is his story. Please click the icon below to watch the story of Hudson, the Super-Duck.
Sincerely,
The Naturalist

Old Snapping Turtle

On the way back from Church today, we spotted a very old snapping turtle walking down the road. Technically, you are supposed to move turtles off the road. But snapping turtles, although they certainly do look like docile reptiles plodding along harmlessly, but due to their extremely quick reflexes and not so pleasant disposition, I didn't wish to risk an arm or a leg.

Snapping turtles (Chelydra serpentina), are reptiles that can be found near almost any permanent body of water in the U.S. Since they are fairly nocturnal animals, and surprisingly prefer a shady, muddy and weedy hideout rather than a bask in the sun by day, the best time to see them by day is in spring and early summer, when females move out of the water in search of a suitable spot to lay their eggs. Unlike many other animals, turtles generally do not guard their eggs. Interestingly, the sex of a turtle is not determined by sex genes, but rather by the specific temperatures that the eggs are exposed to during gestation! Females are pruduced when eggs are in warmer temperatures, while males are preduced when eggs are exposed to cooler temperatures.

An old turtle can be distinguished from a young turtle by looking for keels, or bumps, on the carapace (shell). Young turtles have pronounced keels, while older ones have a relatively smooth carapace. A turtle that is well weathered will probably have parts of their carapaces chipped off, as well as parts of their hooked 'beak', as this snapper (also called loggerhead) does.

Planetary Conjunctions

As you may have read in a past post, I wrote about a Planetary Conjuction last year. Well, as I said, there is another conjuction tommorow morning. But it will not be vissible, unfortunately. But something you can see: Jupiter and the Neptune will have an exact conjuct on the 26th!

Lazy Friday Afternoon

Two exams down, five more to go...*sigh*

It is a beautiful day outside. As I sit here typing and not studying, I can hear a redstart and a house sparrow. All the windows are open, all the doors are open, all the lights are off, and the fans are spinning. Even though it is only May 22, it feels awfully like a cool July afternoon! As I walked out to check on my garden, I saw that some wassically wabbit munched the radish greens off my radishes. There are nibblings on my lettuce leaves as well. Ahhem...This is my garden, and I would like to know just who would scale a WABBIT proof fence and trespass into private property?*cough, cough * John Chippy Chipmunk *Cough*

I am happy to report that the corn family is doing quite well, as well as the pumkin family. No trespassers are making baby green salads out those, thankfully. I am sad to report that a different sort of trespasser knocked Mr. and Mrs. Robin's nest down from under the deck posts. We all know what bandit would have done that! The eggs were pipping when I last checked the nest last week...it's so sad, isn't it? I've tried to deter Mother and Father Robin from building their nest there for several season, because racoons have no trouble getting at the eggs, as you may imagine. (If a racoon can brave pepper spray, outwit little brother knots on about 16 bungie cords on trashcans (Not plastic ones!), and still win what ever little bit of soggy food and eggshells are inside, then scaling a wall shouldn't be too difficult.)

It is 85 degrees outside, and Ms. House Sparrow is not the only one who would like to bath in the warm and enviting sun patches in our shady backyard. There is Master Chip the Chipmunk who is making very hasty trips from garden to hole in the log...hmm...looks fishy...there's somthing in his cheeks! Actually, the little fellow has seen me, and now he is tearing by me like the Tazmanian Devil, and squeaking, as if I'm some really ugly monster....I wonder if I am.....all the animals look at me like that.....Well, here he is, hoping he made just enough noise in that direction, so that I wouldn't notice that that he was really coming from the dirrection of radishes and salads and all my delicious herbs.

I really like days like these, where it is too early for raspy winged cicadas and the violinists, I mean crickets, that practice their instruments high in the great big maples, and it isn't hot enough so that I would need a cold beverage the minute I step outside. It is just the temperature where you want to walk along in the unmown grass, bare foot, and feel the warm earth. And don't you just love the feeling when you step into the shade, and the grass feels so cool compared to when you were in the sun?

Mr. Fly

A Trip to my Garden

Click to see my Slidshow:

Critter Collection

I have a Few New critters!

Two Small fish, only about an inch long. They are meant to be fed to bigger fish, but They are so small and nice looking, that I bought two and put in my "Pond". They are very happy, and of course they're favorite time of day is feeding time!

2 Giant African Millipedes. They are still babies. Not even the length of a pencil. They will reach about a foot in length. But they grow quite slowly. They eat fresh vegies, cucumubers are their favorites.

This is the tank that Cornelius my cornsnake lives in. He loves to burrown under the moss and plants and tunnel under where it is moist and warm.. Right now he is boycotting his house. I had to put a new one in, and is bigger than his old one. The old one got moldy. The plants in the tank are doing so well, that I recently had to trim them because they were getting to big!

First Day of Spring, and Snow

I am just opening my eyes. It is still dark in the room, but not too dark to see. I look at my watch. March 20 and it is 6:30. I yawn, role over, and snooze another couple of minutes. MARCH 20TH!!! It's the first day of spring! I hop out of bed, and pull on my jeans, a shirt that says "Chocolate", and a sweatshirt. My bathroom has a door that goes to the outside, so I don't even bother going out of my bedroom before I grab my camera and dash outside. It is now 6:40, and I look into the sky. Huge thumbnail sized snow clumps are coming down by the bucketfull. It is not cold outside. But it often so when it snows. The snow flakes are big, too. This means that they are coming from pretty low clouds. Clouds that are lower, manufacture snowflakes at warmer temperatures. Snow is made when tiny water droplets condense on specks of dust. Because of the molecular composition of water, multiple droplets of water begin to form crystals. Crystals that come from clouds this low tend to be soggy and and stick to eachother, and that is why the snow flakes are so big. (It is dark because of the low clouds.) I make a few photographs, but I am in a hurry to get back inside to pack my bag. Today I get my learner's permit, and I've waited all too long since my 16th birthday last June to miss my opportunity today! before I shut the door behind me, I note with satisfaction, "Good, it's not sticking, and it's so warm, that it will stop soon, and my crocuses will not die of frostbite this year." Last year, after a warm spell in the beggining of March, Mr. Weather decided to play an early April Fools day trick, brining snow baring clouds, wind, and his trusty puck, Jack Frost, back into the the scene. My poor miniature crocus patches in our front lawn fell for it, and came up a few weeks early, only to freeze when they were still green shoots with hints of yellow, and hang limp and lifeless when the sun came out again. I shut the door, still reminiscing about still previous springs. As I walked back to my bedroom, I looked out a window. There, as white and fluffy as a knitted baby's blanket, lay a crinkled layer of snow. Well, it was pretty, but I hope we will have crocuses this year!

Please Write a Caption!

Ice