Little Baby Plecos

Hiya

Well, In addition to Missy I keep fish - currently just the one tropical tank (I had to downscale having previously run two) and its a 240L, which unless I can get something custom made, is the biggest I can have in the house!

A few weeks ago I noticed that my bristlenose plecs were acting pretty weird, but decided to leave them be as they looked healthy and it was fun to watch them digging and burrowing about all the bog wood. Then the hubby spotted one of these:

A teeny tiny baby! Less than 5mm long.

And then I spotted all of these!:

Yes, all those yellow things are eggs, and Daddy is guarding them!

And now they've all hatched. They're too small to take out into a nursery tank, so we've had to leave them to fend for themselves. We'd always set the tank up to be as anti baby as possible - plecs and corries to eat the eggs, congo tetras and butterfly fish to eat any small offspring. The plan backfired when the plecs guard their eggs, and then, since they are plecs, they never leave the bottom of the tank, the other fish haven't really eaten them...

Currently I can spot usually 8-10 babies at any one time, last night I got 16, so goodness knows how many there are going to be! The plan is to hand them into the local aquatic store once they get big enough to fish out (no pun intended), but I will keep you all updated on plec-gate!

In other news, we're all heading down to the lakes for a week - Missy never likes us packing so she has been regarding the whole thing with great suspicion. I'm sure I'll get some nice photos to post up once we're back (at least, if the weather is fair! Its been horrific the last few days!)

One of the reasons we're going down that way is that its my nieces birthday weekend, and she is perhaps the greatest receiver of sewn goods from me, so here is a few bits I'm taking down for her!

    

The cloak is because she wants to be a vampire when she grows up! It matches a little waistcoat I made her earlier in the year (But alas, have no photos of!). The little dungarees are adorable but I think its going to be the red lucky cat pinny dress that goes down the best with my sister!

Till next time!

Blackness Castle

Its another one for the Scottish Heritage pass! Desperately trying to make sure we get our moneys worth out of these...

So, Blackness Castle - the boat that never floated....

Seriously, from the pier it looks like a ship - its the strangest little castle you can imagine! And of course its dog friendly, so Missy has been continuing with her history lessons. This one boasts a prison tower, a great hall, a large courtyard and even allows you to walk around most of the curtain wall. We bumped into lots of other pooches who were enjoying their lessons as well, so it seems a local favourite for a nice afternoon.

This was a good castle for the dog as, despite the winding staircases (she's just about mastered them now without towing one of us to out imminent deaths) it was really quite open, and the grounds included a nice stroll along the beach which had plenty of rabbits in the long grass for shaking off any history-induced-cobwebs.

Missy is admiring her kingdom

In addition to trawling the local area for castles and other unusual and fun places to take the dog, I've been getting on with a lot of sewing projects. Whilst I enjoy dressing Missy up in silly hats and coats, the hubby prefers a more practical look for the dog (Missy, her wagging tail reliably informs me that she really doesn't care, so long as there is treats at the end of it all!) And so I present to you all (courtesy of Simplicty Pattern 1578) a doggy bathrobe! Perfect for little doggies like mine who absolutely hate being dried down (really, the way she acts when you try to dry her paws would have you thinking you were wielding a rusty saw at the dog!)

I also do sewing for humans too - mostly little ones like my nieces and nephew, but sometimes I do manage to make something a bit more grown up sized. I might do a wee post sometime soon with a wee sewing round up, but until then, cheerio!

Cairnpapple

Long time no type, and my apologies for that.

I've been a bit lost as to the general direction I want to take this blog, and think a less formal approach is perhaps more needed, as well as something that encompasses a bit more of my general life. So, here's to another try!

For our birthdays the hubby and I got Historic Scotland passes and we were pleased to realise that a lot of the sites allow dogs. The general rule of thumb seems to be that if there is no roof, then the dogs welcome, which is great news for Missy!

We decided to christen the passes with what is technically the nearest site to us - Cairnpapple. Its basically one of the highest natural hills in the area and was used as a ritual site by various peoples in time. Originally hosting a henge (of the wooden sort, although the size of the holes that supported the timbers are huge, so it would still have been impressive in its day) it was then used as bronze age burial mound and then again in the early Christian age.

We all really enjoyed the site, the hubby won himself a sticker filling in the kids quiz (on Missys behalf, of course!) and I managed to get a few nice photos. I'm hoping for a really crisp clear day soon, the view is terrific and would love to get some more photos of it.

In other news, I've been playing about with the up-cycling trend (good for both the environment and the pocket!). Missy is unsure of wether she approves of this!