Photo: Author and mosquito swarm. One annoying aspect of climate in this part of Texas is our drought/flood cycle. While we average 34 inches of rain a year, much of that falls in a few large rains. Last year Hurricane Harvey dumped 14 inches of rain on us. Then we entered drought, which was ... Read More
Archives for 2018
Drought and Flood
Photo: This is not a lake, but is instead a normally dry pasture covered with fourteen inches of rain from Hurricane Harvey. Last August Hurricane Harvey tarried around for a while and caused significant damage to our roof and the front of our house. The front was added in the 1950s to a house ... Read More
South Texas Collecting Trip
Photo: A pair of mystery footprints in shallow water on the margins of a pond on a South Texas ranch. At the bottom is the shadow of the author's I-phone for scale. The first week of March this year I got a message from our nephew Darin Rokyta, an Associate Professor of the Department of ... Read More
Signs of Summer on the Farm
Photo above: The farm's first sign of summer, a rattlesnake (Crotalus atrox) in a barrel after being captured in our yard. We know the beginning of summer on the farm not by calendar, but by nature. The clearest sign of summer is snakes. Specifically, rattlesnakes and copperheads. The ... Read More
Roof Snake
As we continue our recovery from Hurricane Harvey, on a Sunday in late March 2018 I was on the roof finishing the removal of a large blue tarp that had been keeping our roof from leaking during rains. I had to remove and replace it because our insurance company required me to pull it up for ... Read More
Raising Mosquito Larvae for Fish Food
Photo: A mosquito larvae culture system to raise live foods for fish. I originally wrote this as an article in our monthly Newsletter (now dormant, but likely to be revived). I’ve made some edits, but it’s largely the same information. Also, it’s a timely blog since mosquito season will be ... Read More
Arulius Barb
A male Arulius Barb (Puntius arulius or maybe Dawkinsia tambraparniei) in front of a one-inch grid to show size. Note the filaments on his dorsal. Recently I got this email from a customer (slightly edited): “Hi Charles. I hope you guys fared the cold weather well. I just wanted to ... Read More
Developing a Strain from a Single Fish
Photo: Two very young male Bronze Sailfin Mollies showing the improved coloration I selected for. They are too young to sport nice sailfins, but they grew up with large dorsals. As evidence of their youth, look at their gonopodia (anal fin), which are just beginning to develop. How many times ... Read More
Poecilia formosa – Amazon Molly
Photo: Two Poecilia formosa, Amazon mollies, collected from Coleto Creek at Highway US 77 in Victoria County, Texas. December 12, 2017, four of us plus two German Shepherds went collecting on Coleto Creek in Victoria County, Texas (see my blogs: ... Read More