The photo shows Maya’s foot, swollen from a copperhead bite a couple of hours earlier. Maya is one of our German Shepherd Dogs (GSD). She’s just less than 22 months old and lives here with her brother, Oso, and mother Tally. Here are some links to earlier blogs about the GSDs: ... Read More
farm
Chupacabra?
The photo is of the trunk, with missing chunks of bark, of an old Arizona ash tree in our yard. A week or so ago Susie, my wife, and I were sitting on the back porch enjoying a cool evening breeze when I noticed chunks of bark missing from a large ash tree in the yard. I remarked about, ... Read More
Gambusia Road Trip -Day 4
Photo: Cara, Tally, Maya, Gus, and Oso on the Gambusia Road Trip Day four had a great start. The second heater made the camper toasty warm all night. Even Gus had a comfortable night. Also, we had camped adjacent to the spring and its outflow, so getting to the habitat of G. nobilis and the ... Read More
Gambusia Road Trip – Day 1
Day one started off slowly. First, I had check the greenhouse water pumps, something I thought would be done the day before. Second, we had load up supplies. Fortunately, Susie aided in this task (she desperately wanted us gone). We finally pulled away from the farm only five hours late at 11:00 ... 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
Quarantine Procedures
I got this question from Tim Gray of Beeville, Texas, that I think is very interesting, so I’m blogging about it: “Mr. Clapsaddle, could you explain your quarantine practices when bringing in wild stock or from unknown sources?” Here was my response: Tim, This is a great topic. We have ... Read More
Blue Mist Flower
The photo is of a single Blue Mist Flower (Eupatorium species) about three feet high and six feet across. This plant is covered in baby blue flowers for about six weeks in the fall. It is an important butterfly and bee plant. This particular plant is growing alongside one of our greenhouses next to ... Read More
Resurrection Palm
The title of this post is misleading since it’s really about a cycad not a palm, but most people don’t know the difference and cycads do look like palms. The particular cycad in question is probably in the genus Dioon, but we don’t know which species. I got this plant in 1975 having rescued it ... Read More
Texas Weather: Persistent Drought with Occasional Flooding
As is often the case in Texas, a drought (we’re a half year into another drought after the last ended a few months before this one started), ends with flooding. Saturday, while Susie and I were in Fort Worth, the farm got 3.2”, the biggest single day rainfall since Tropical Storm Hermine in ... Read More