Sunday 20 May 2012

Finally!

I was hoping to post about my Mother's Day present, as it's been slow going.  Now I finally can.  Soon.

This last few weeks have been slow.  Stressful.  Wishing I could just curl up and disappear sometimes.  Some of you may know that a particular part of my work, shipping, is a real stress factor for me.  And it's getting to be a much bigger portion of the job.  I hate it.  And I can see no end to that.  I cannot do anything about it, but it sure does make the job horrid.

Dobby has had some personal issues, too, which as a parent are particularly stressful.  As a parent, when your child is cranky, you wear it.  It's hard.  But, she seems to have hissy fits and gets over them rather quickly.  She just has them regularly.  Sigh.

Mother has also been in hospital.  She experienced pain and shortness of breath on Mother's Day.  You can imagine what sort of flack we gave her about wanting more attention on Mother's Day, can't you?  She had fibrillations of the top portion of her heart so they kept her in for several days while they did tests.  I think that place stressed her more than being at home though.  Terribly understaffed they are.  Anyway, although she still has flutters and the occasional pain, she is much better, although terribly miffed at being put onto rat poison for the next few weeks.  Fingers crossed it settles down anyway.  I need her around for a bit longer yet, never mind everyone else!

Things with Fluffy are going very well.  He's such a lovely person sometimes.  The week before Mother's Day, just before I was drifting off to sleep, he rolled over and said "I'd like to get you something very special for Mother's Day".  Really?  "Yes," he said, "Your frogs."

If any of you know me personally, you know how long I have wanted to keep frogs.  In Queensland, where I am from, they are so plentiful that when you step out your back door, you literally step on several of them.  They are everywhere.  But here in Adelaide they are very rare.  Some of the remoter areas have them, and I am told that you can create water features in your yard that encourage them.  But I am not sure how, in built up areas, that would happen.  Probably up in the Hills but not here.

So, anyway, as I always do, when I go to pet shops I price the kits or frogs or just generally have a look.  Recently I had gone to the pet place down the main road from us, and told him that they had the terrarium all kitted out for $320.  You just needed a few other bits and bobs to put it in.  I jokingly said I'd have to save up a bit more.  Previously we had priced this set up at $600 complete.

Anyway, on his day off he went for a look.  He also spent some time on the internet.  He found a place that had the set up, including a waterfall background, for about the same price, but you had to buy other stuff for it.

He decided that was the way we were going, and on the Saturday before Mother's Day he took me down to purchase one.  The tank, water heater, light fitting, extra greenery, and water pump, cost him $355.  But the water pump and cover had to be ordered in.

We came home and set it up, and just waited for the extra bits.  I couldn't get the frogs until it's all done.  Then, finally, yesterday we were able to pick up the water heater and cover.  We discovered, after wandering around a couple other places, that we had too much water in the bottom, so we drained off some of that, and added more gravel.  It looks fantastic, but I am worried the heater isn't working properly.  Then, I figured, that it will probably just take some time for all the water to heat.  After all, it has to work it's way through the gravel.

One place had a wonderful big tank with about 4 huge green fellows in there.  they also had white pebbles in the bottom, with a well dug out as a a water holding area.  We used brown natural gravel, and river rocks for ours, and left a small area as a natural pool.  The picture doesn't do it justice.

Oh, we also bought a couple boxes of crickets and a bag of the stuff to keep them in.  What we didn't realise is that you need a container to store the crickets in as well.  We had one big enough that they can't jump out of.  In they went, with some fresh carrot.  Now my house has the sound of running water and chirping crickets all through it.  Nice!

A friend has several frogs she was selling for $35 each.  I got a message the other day to say I can have two for $50.  They are only 5 months old so I am taking her up on that.  Might see if she'll give me 4 for $100... worth the ask I reckon.

The shop that had the white gravel in their tank also said that you should handle them as much as possible while they're small to get them used to it.  I think I just night do that!  Of course, you have to have clean, wet hands to do it.  But it will be fun.  The 'un-funest' bit will be feeding them the crickets.  Need some little tweezers for that I think.

This afternoon I got the message that I can go have a look at the frogs.  Wow, they are so cute!  About 2" long perhaps.  


This one is not actually this pale.  They have changed colour several times.  One of them is lighter green, one more grey and the other blue-green.  But apart from a couple of spots on the lighter one, tis difficult to tell them apart.

Fluffy gave them a couple of crickets today, just to see how they would go.  Man, they are quick!  Feeding day is going to be fun!


All 3 are in this photo.  You know what we find amusing?  Everyone has a different theory on what to do with them.  Some say you definitely need a heater, some day they don't even use one.  Another says just a small dish of water, they don't go in it anyway, yet we have found ours are never out of it.  Still, I think they will like their new home.  Haven't got any names yet, except Larry, Curly and Mo...

Suggestions, anyone?

On another note, see the stick?  I had said to Fluffy that I really wanted a stick in the tank, just so they had something other than the waterfall or the stony bottom to sit on.  When they were all in and settled he disappeared for a minute, then came back with this one.  Well, you know what?  They love it, and it's just exactly what I was thinking of.  He cut it off some old tree branches that have been lying in the back yard for ages.  

Anyway, that's my exciting couple of weeks.  I hope I haven't bored you too much.  Thanks for reading!

4 comments:

Chris H said...

Your terrarium looks fantastic. our frogs started out green, but they are all dark grey now!

Anonymous said...

The 3 amigos, whatever their names were! RAT

SOL's view said...

The frogs look great! :)

Chris H said...

Hey Chick, if you read down a bit on Pepsi you will see that the problem between Steve/Bec's and Amanda is all Amanda's doing, NOT Bec's.
Amanda is the one fueling the silliness, no one else.