Shadow Void

Photo Friday: Noisy; Steam Saw Mill

 

This picture was taken at the Heston Steam Show.  It is plenty noisy.

The Mating Attempt and other Pet News

I went down to my neighbor's house with 2 of my spiders and my possibly gravid ( preggy ) scorpion. He got out his Orange Baboon spider which happens to be a male and placed him near the top of my female's tank. He got near her webbing and starting drumming with his feet and his abdomen. I was super excited and nervous at the same time. He entered one of her silken tunnels that she just happened to be in also. He entered the tube the wrong way, and only managed to meet her backside. Peneration in tarantulas is done from the front. All his showing off to her was useless. She didn't even react to him. All she did was walk out of the tube and that was that. There wasn't any mating taking place tongiht. So yeah, I am kind of sad but at the same time I am kind of hopefull. We would try again with her and him at a later date. On the other hand, I do have some good news. The scorpion that everyone was telling me couldn't be pregant is in fact gravid. My neighbor took one look at her and was said "She is gravid. She'll be busting any time now. All I can do is wait. I need to read up on what to do for them. He told me to wait for the 2nd instar which has to do with molting and size. After that they drop off the mother and they could become a meal for her. I want to try and avoid that if at all possible. I have more news for you. He gave me 10 hissing cockroaches, a mix of males and females. Yeah, I can now breed them and supplement my feedings. I don't have to rely on just crickets any more. My baby spiders got a meal of tiny cockroaches of another species today. Which by the way I have another story to tell you about that. I had bought my nephew a baby orange baboon spider. As I was droppign the baby roaches into it's enclosure, he tried to climb out of the enclosure and at one point was stuck to the lid. At point I thought it have escaped so I carefully stepped away from the area of my room that I was sitting and I called my nephews to come down and help me look for it. Right after I called them, I found the little spider at the bottom of it's enclosure. I was so relieved. One more story, I promise and then I will leave you alone I swear. I was feeding the last of my baby spiders and was ready to drop two of the baby roaches into the container for the sling ( baby spider ). I had the baby roach on one of my paintbrushes that I use for messing with my spiders. Any wa he didn't go after the roach, he literally attacked my paintbrush. He was trying to stink his fangs into it. I am so glad that it was not my fingers. He did this not once, but twice. Any way all is good. I guess that is all for today at least for now.

Poison Hemlock

Ladies and gentlemen, my dad is a pretty gardener.  He can grow almost anything or at least that is my experience. Apparently he can also grow posison but poison hemlock.  Yes, it would appear that my dad is growing the very plant that killed Socrates.  He's growing it amongst tomatoes.  In fact, he's had it for two years now.  I'm not sure why it took me this long for the red flags to go up.  Call me crazy but no one should be growing this plant.  It serves no real purpose.  I'll post pictures today and then tomorrow if I can find my video camera, I'll put up a video of it.  At any rate, I thought it was kind of a different type of garden plant.

 A Bad view of Poison Hemlock Flowers:

 Look at the plant in the back, do you see the purple on the stem that is a good sign of poison hemlock:

Here is a pic of the leaves

 

I use myself as to give you an idea of how tall this plant can be.  I'm 5'1".

A Little Bit More For you.

I looked a friend up some job information on the computer. It started off he would call once or twice a month for me to look something else up for him. He's called today at least 1 time but then he comes over for help. He was over yesterday for help. He wants a job, and needs a job, but he won't take get a job. If I were out of work, I think I would trying to get a job at Burger king, wal-mart, petco, or pet-smarts. Take today for example, he comes over to my house complain about how bad life is at his house. He doesn't work and if my little searches for job is the extent of his job searches, he's not going to get one. Any way, back to today, he comes over here and asks to use the phone. He calls this place in Minnesota and give them MY number. Doesn't ask just gives it out. Hell ( sorry ) the other day, I printed him out an application. All he had to do was fill it out and then fax it. I would have given him the couple bucks it would take to fax it. Did he fax it, nope! He just took it. I'm sorry if I sound rude or disrespectful or cruel. I'm not, I'm really not. I'm just frustrated!!