Goldfish Pond
This is my most exciting gardening venture this year - my water lily's first bloom in our stock tank cum goldfish pond. As I believe strongly in letting nature do the work whenever possible, plants are an essential part of my aquarium/pond setup.
We also have water hyacinths floating across the pond, now about 3x what they were when I ordered them off ebay.
Rounding up the cleaning crew, we have a dozen Chinese/Japanese trapdoor snails to help keep the tank tidy. They, too, should be hardy enough for a Wyoming winter.
Living in the tank, we have 15 or 16 goldfish living in here - just the cheap, feeder goldfish from our local pet store. We did lose a couple to begin with, but the rest have grown very well. It's probably slightly too many for the 115 gallon tank, but I don't expect all of them to make it through the winter, though they are hardy critters. Here, they're wondering what I'm up to - undoubtedly hoping for more food!
Storms
It's been a relatively quiet storm season so far this year. Only a couple of severe storms to break the drought. I value the rainwater when I can capture some as it has a much lower pH (around 5.6) than the water we get from our faucets (around 8.2-8.4 pH). I utilize the rainwater in my fish tanks to keep it softer for most of our species. The snails and shrimp like the higher pH, but most of the fish prefer lower. One storm, I filled five 5-gallon buckets in about 10 minutes! 25 gallons of nice, soft rainwater was very welcome! (The 30-second drenching I received as I moved buckets around to take the best advantage of holes in the guttering, lol, was also quite fun. Note: the guttering is one repair I do not intend to ask the management for!)
Autism
I grew up in the 80s, when autism was pretty much restricted to severe regressive, mentally handicapped kinds and then you had Rain Man who is loved/loathed by the autistic community. One of my younger cousins was diagnosed with ADD (now ADHD) - though, strangely, he's done better as an adult than either of his siblings. My parents felt that most of his "disorder" was down to parenting (he was probably at least half right, though definitely not 100% right.)
I coped pretty well with the school system, flying through with good grades without too much effort - which was a disservice to me, as I really didn't know how to work for my grades - then, when I went to college, I struggled because of that. Plus the fact that I didn't have a real clear direction in life. All I really wanted to do was get married to a farmer or rancher, then raise animals and children... and instead, I was supposed to have a career first. I think that if I had better guidance along the way, I might have had an easier time of things.
Anyway, it was as I was talking to the father of my youngest child who was checking out his own autistic traits that I finally decided to take a look for myself - and my daughters... and discovered that all three of us (and likely my sons as well) are on the spectrum - albeit all very high functioning.
This knowledge has hit me in several ways. It's hard because I never suspected I had enough traits of this to have a label, but it's also weird, because I think a lot of the traits are simply the traits of someone with high IQ (something that also runs strongly in my family.) Finally, it has given me new insight into who I am and some of my quirks which are more or less descriptive of high-functioning autism.
One of the more interesting traits is what seems to be a typical autism "burnout" - which I can understand, especially as I've found it difficult to keep up on Hive posts for about the past year... and sense a possible need to back away from writing for awhile. (I hope not, but I have to realize that it might happen.)
Anyway, this is something I will, undoubtedly, share much more about in the future - especially as I learn more.
Travel
We're off to South Dakota this week - just for a few days for a much-needed break and explore. This is a state I've not been to yet, so I'm very much looking forward to it. Should be lots of pictures to share when we get back!
One more picture of my water lily in the goldfish pond...
Photos taken in July 2021 with my Nikon D7200
Past issues...
2021
Happy 2021 to Everyone! (New Year's Day)
June 6, 2021 - Fish, Farming and the Future - including feature photo of Paul R Tregurtha
July 25, 2021 - Heartache, Health and Healing
2020
Feb 2, 2020 - Flu Sucks!
Feb 9, 2020 - Planning 2020
Feb 16, 2020 - Skating and Eating and Writing, Oh My!
Feb 23, 2020 - Chicken Scratchings and Graphics
Mar 1, 2020 - Inspections R Us
Mar 8, 2020 - New Chicks
Mar 15, 2020 - Pandemic Hits Writing
Apr 5, 2020 - Fools in April?
Jun 14, 2020 - Of Gardens and Vibes
Oct 6, 2020 - Drawing the Line - When it is time to quit (Not Sunday)
Dec 15, 2020 - Winter, Writing and Winging It (Not Sunday)
Lori Svensen
author/designer at A'mara Books
photographer/graphic artist for Viking Visual
(Buy my work at RedBubble, TeePublic, PicFair and DeviantArt.)
verified author on Goodreads
(Buy my books at Books2Read and at LBRY)
find me on Twitter
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