Photo: Blondie with purple dewberry stains from rolling in dewberries. Note the purple patches behind her shoulder and on her upper haunch.Every early summer, we go dewberry picking on the farm. Susie makes jam and cobbler from the berries. We have large patches of dewberries, but they are a bit ... Read More
Plants
Teas, Fish, and Chickens
Photo: Greenhouses without their covers immediately after Hurricane Harvey. Note the trees in the background stripped of their leaves by the hurricane force winds. So, what do tea, fish, and chickens have in common? This blog will tie them together. Our farm and hatchery have had two ... Read More
Climbing Cactus
Photo: Flower of Selenicereus spinulosus, a climbing cactus from Texas. Back in 1997 while we still lived in Santa Fe, New Mexico Susie (my wife) and I visited Goliad, Texas to see my mother and grandparents. On the return trip we took a leisurely route toward Del Rio, Texas before heading home. ... Read More
Our 108 Year Old Fig Tree
Photo: A 108 year old fig tree planted in 1908 by my great grandfather. Fig trees are common around old farmhouses in Goliad County. They were easily propagated and maintained and provided a fruit that could be eaten fresh or dried or preserved as a jam. When my grandfather was an infant in ... Read More
Copperhead Eating Lizard
Photo: by Ky Harkey of a copperhead feasting on a green anole lizard. About this time of the year our copperheads (Agkistrodon contortrix) switch from cruising around in the evening and early night for emerging cicadas and June bugs to climbing into shrubs to feed on green anoles (Anolis ... Read More
Plant Filtration
Photo: Red Mangrove tree in the plant filter. One aspect of our hatchery systems we use to raise fish that always seems to fascinate hobbyists when I speak at fish clubs is our plant filtration system. Goliad Farms exclusively uses plant filtration designed by us through trial and error. We have ... Read More
Winter in South Texas
Photo: Geranium (actually genus Pelargonium) after winter in South Texas. Winter in our area continues to become milder. When I was a child, several decades ago, we had winters with real freezes, several of them a year. (By the way, when did we quit capitalizing seasons and directions?) A typical ... Read More
Poecilia reticulata, McCauley Spring, New Mexico
Photo shows a group of Poecilia reticulata from McCauley Spring, New Mexico Across the Rio Grande River from Santa Fe, New Mexico are the Jemez Mountains. Nestled in the canyons of these mountains is a warm spring named McCauley Spring. McCauley Spring feeds a mountain stream about a yard ... Read More
California Bound
I’ll be speaking twice this next week. On Sunday, March 1st I’ll speak at COAST (http://www.coastfishclub.com/ncms/) in Costa Mesa, California at 12:30 pm on fancy livebearers; how we breed and raise them. Then Friday, March 6th, I’ll speak at the San Francisco Aquarium Society ... Read More
Poecilia mexicana, Campeche
We recently processed our Poecilia mexicana, Campeche. We got this wild molly species in June 2009 from Dr. Ptacek of Clemson University. The "Campeche" notation indicates that Dr. Ptacek collected the fish in Campeche, Mexico. It has proven to be one of our most popular short finned mollies. The ... Read More