Riding the Current

This is a Queen of the Night cactus in full bloom with probably 50 more buds ready to open. The Queen of the Night will only open its flowers in the evening-the early morning. It will truly never stop growing taller until it falls over and busts off all its branches. Then the stump will sprout more branches and the branches will sprout more Queen of the Nights. There must be 50 of them around the house and all came from a single plant that had to be trimmed. All of its plants had to be trimmed. We only trim them because they get frost-bite. That is everything you need to know on the Queen of the Night cactus.

Left Side

Right Side

Today I went to the pet store and they were having a buy-one-get-one-free sale on all fish!

This here is 1 of my Tiger Botias. This is a lucky picture because he is constantly moving around the tank at 60MPH. This is when I caught him resting. It took 18 pictures to get the veiw and focus right. He is very camera shy. This here is 1 of my Orange-head Hypostomas. They are not as shy as the Tiger Botias, but they are very skiddish and curious.

My sister's beetle hatched this afternoon! It looks like a June Bug to me. We are letting it go in our herb garden. (See below for pics of it in its cocoon/pupa.) She named it Orlando (as in Bloom!)

Here is Crystal on my boat called the Acacia. I built it myself. He was in the pool for quit a long time. He did get kind of wet, but he liked it.

This is our most interesting and flower-with-most-buds Sunflower. I counted the buds and got 33! This sunflower is the only red one. This is one of our Mammoth Sunflowers and this one is doing the best.

This is 1 of my Monarch attractant Milkweed plants. I have been raising Monarchs since Kindergarten. Right now they are not in season.

This is one of my Prickly Pair cactus. This one was just a pad about 3 months ago!

This is the angelfish I couldn't get to show it's face to the camera yesterday. This one is sometimes shy and sometimes calm.

This one is the smallest of the 3 and is very peaceful. I did find this one to be very hard to picture though.

This is one of the 3 angels. I hand picked them. This is the first one I picked. It is my favorite.

Some better pics of old fish.

Here is 1 of my 2 Blue Gouramis. They are both males and they chase each other around quite often.
Here is my Banded Leporinus that I can never get a good picture of because he is always so skiddish. I snuck out the camera and got this good picture. This morning he dug a hole in the gravel and then filled it back in.

Went to the pet shop and got some new fish!

Here is my Crayfish again. He was in this position and I decided to take advantage.
This is 1 of my Albino Paradise Gouramis. I used to have a normal Paradise Gourami, but now with these in the albino color form I can see yet another fish in albino form. I have 2 males and 1 female. NEW!

Here is my Whiptail Cat. He is normally in hiding but I found him in plain view so here he is. NEW!

Another odd creature in the home.This is my sister's mealworm in its pupal stage which is the last stage before turning into a beetle. We have had it for 3 weeks. It was once just a little worm and now it is in the final stage of its metamorphasis.

Our adorable kittens!

This is Fluffy our girl kitten. She is about 2 months old. She is still very, very playful. When she is cuddled she closes her eyes and purrs.

Here is Crystal our boy kitten. He is about 2 months old. He by far is the most playful and adventurous kitten of the 2. When he is picked up he will sometimes squirm around and other times he will calmly closes his eyes and purr.

More Cats, Bunnies and Fish.
This is my Orange-spot pleco who is normally hiding or moving everywhere. I got lucky that he was just sitting there. His name is Hoover. Hoover is my favorite pleco that I have ever had. Just before this I saw him upside down sucking on the surface. (He rarely does this.)
Here are 3 of the kitties. From the left: Puff-Puff, Hershey, Fu Manchu
The bunny's name is Wiggles. She is an Albino Rex with soft velvety fur. We have had her for about 1 year and she's so funny sometimes. We'll let her in the house ever so often and she zips around the living room at super high speed.



Well I thought I'd add some more creatures to my blog here. The cat pictures are of one we like to call Puff-Puff and the other is Fu Manchu. They were sitting in the yard and they are quite friendly.

Some Creatures around the Home

Now here is my favorite of my 6 cats. Her name is Jasmine and she is 3 years old. Almost every night she sleeps on me and sits on my aquariums like she is in the picture. One of her favorite treats is fish flakes.??? Once she batted the glass on the tank but normally she just hops up and sleeps.
The Crayfish
The whole tank.
The Albino Rainbow Shark

I have a 25 Gallon freshwater tank that I'm looking to add some kind of cichlids in my tank. I had it as a community tank. But then I got my 29 Gallon tank and moved my 2 fish in the tank. The 29 currently consists of:

2 Blue Gouramis
1 Banded Leporinus
1 Albino Rainbow Shark
1 Orange-spot Pleco
1 Crawfish
1 Guppy

The tanks about 1 year old and is my favorite. My Banded Leporinus is about 3.75 inches and I believe it is a female because for the first time in possibly scientific history it is full of eggs. I had one that was 6.5 inches long and never had that happen. I will try to add another that is not having eggs and they might spawn. I wrote down all the scientific data.