A wintry day

Well, we've had our first snowfall of the year and the nights are officially drawing in, so in my books, winter has arrived. Its not all gloom and doom, we have an action plan in place to try and help Missy get over her Christmas phobia and December is pretty much full up already with plans to see people and spend time with one another.

We managed a lovely winter walk up and around Cockleroy today. It was surprisingly busy around Beecraigs, but we had the hill to ourselves for the most part. The wind was bitter though! I thought I was going to get blown away and Missy just showed off and trotted around us happily. She loves the snow, all the scents sit fresh on top of it and, thankfully, we only lost sight of her the once. She came back to us a minute later looking mighty pleased with herself and out of breath, so she had fun!

In other news, our plecs have had babies again - slightly later than last year! We spotted the eggs straight away and got them into a nursery tank this time, so no need to try and stress out fishing tiny babies from the big tank. Its been tremendous fun watching them grow up from eggs, to larvae, to fry and now proper juvenile fish. We hadnt expected so many to survive, but out of the whole clutch we've only lost half a dozen, so out best estimate of 70-100 fish still stands. I already have a shop lined up to take them off us once they get a little bigger, so its all ok, although I am watching out in the main tank in case we get another cluster of eggs!

I'll leave you with the development photos of the babies and aim to be back soon - I've got some fun sewing projects on the go that I'm looking forward to sharing, and if all goes well, Missy is meeting someone special tomorrow!

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!