Better Weather Thursday.

[wsantia1]

Good morning everyone. After overnight rain I woke up to drying out conditions with the temp at 48 degrees. It is still cloudy but we will be getting up to a high temp of 62, I'll take it.

As of right now my back is a little stiff but it should loosen up a bit as I start moving around. Even with all of these back issues I have still been able to walk between 5 and 6 miles a day thanks to Kobe.

We go to the park twice a day so that he can see his dog friends (and my friends too) and he has been doing much better now that it is cooler.

Today I need to work on my shrimp tanks a bit though I don't mess with them too much. They are doing pretty good since I went to distilled re-mineralized water for them. My tap water is way too soft for them. I may try to add mineral salts to that but for now I'll leave everything alone.

Time for my first walk around the park. Have a great day everyone.

[Barb]

Holy moly Willie!  You really walk 5-6 miles a day? And with a bad back??  I sure wish I could walk even 1 mile.  Even 1/2 mile.  But my right leg won't let me do that, no matter what.

  It is warmish and sunny today, not a drop of rain in sight.  You know, the last good rain in my neighborhood was in July.  Severe drought going on now, the ponds in my neighborhood are down 3-4 feet now, and in places bare dirt is showing in the middle of them.  We have 5 large drainage ponds that also look good, but they look bad now.  The ducks and geese stand on pond bottom rather than floating on water.  Sad sight. And with no fresh water, what is there is getting bad from all the poop in it from birds.  d

I am going out to do yard work now, my camellia bush has about 1000 dead buds on it, also sad.  But they just fall into the mulch where it is planted so no mess at all.  Now I wait for next year to see blooms on it.  Have a good day,
Barb

[LizStreithorst]

Shoot Willie, I couldn't even walk a mile with my walker.  You are so lucky to be able to do it.  I used to love to walk.  I didn't even think of it as exercise.  It was just a part of life for me.

It's a beautiful day today.  We will hit 76!  It should be this way for the next several days.  All the Discus babies left dad when I put in the BBS this morning.  Just now I gave them some Tubifex fines that I had soaked in tank water first.  I wonder how long it will be before they discover it.  I did a bit of kitchen cleaning then went out to put up the out door chicken feeder that I ordered for my big hens.  It was in the coop before but since the big hens roost in the tree and don't go in to the chicken house except to eat I decided to devote the entire chicken house to the babies once they're big enough to move outside.  The new feeder holds 50 lbs of feed so I unloaded the chicken feed into buckets and
poured it in.  Then  I raked the old bedding into a tarp and dragged it out to where the veggie garden is in the pasture.  It wasn't that heavy and it would have been easy for any well put together human, but it whupped my ass.

Then Humana contacted me and told me that they could not refill my Tramadol so I'm going through that whole mess again.  Damned controlled drugs make me crazy.  The doctors have to be careful because if they make a mistake and prescribe it for an addict they risk having their license taken away.  But I'm taking it according to label directions.  Why on earth is this so difficult?  It's not like I want to take pain drugs.  The pain doctor's nurse explained to me why it is out of their hands and told me to call my family doctor.  His nurse is checking everything out and write a report that Dr. Beaman will read.  After he reviews it they will get back to me this afternoon.  This back of mine is the curse of a lifetime.  So there!

I still have to haul the bale of shavings to the chicken house so I can re-bed it, and get the 50 lb sack of chick starter to the chicken house.  Those things aren't pressing, though.  The hatchery is sending my chicks Priority rather than Express.  The chicks were shipped yesterday and won't arrive until Monday!  I know that the hatcheries put something moist in the chick's bedding.  I hope what they add includes nutrition.  5 days is a long time for new born chicks to be without food.  The good hatcheries know what they're doing and this hatchery gets 2 thumbs up from the chicken forum.  That's the end of my bitching.  Sorry...I couldn't help it.

I got 6 swiss chard plants while I was at the feed store yesterday.  Once I take my afternoon pain meds and give them a bit of time to kick in I'll head out to the garden to plant them and do a little mulching with the chicken bedding I hauled out already.  That's such fun work but I know it will knock me out.

Guys, when I got Discus they were my first fish except for a couple of neglected 10 gallon tanks when I was a kid.  Once I got serious about them I set up for easy WC because I had a full time job back then that kept me humping.  I needed it to be fast and easy. I do daily WC religiously.  But I am human and not perfect.  Sometimes I'll miss a WC for a day.  When I miss a day because I hurt too badly to want to tackle it I give a huge water change on most every tank the next day because I feel so much guilt. 

Barb, I need to take another pic of Big Boy and his wife to show you.  They will likely be the parents of the babies you want.  Mom has grown a good bit lately.  Of course Big Boy puts most all Discus to shame when it comes to size.   She has the most nearly perfect pattern of all my home bred fish.  There should be some very nice kids in that spawn.