Not Meant to Be

(Jason before his watery burial)

The morning after this post we found Jason, the goldfish, floating lifelessly in the fish tank.

Two down, one to go.

And "going" didn't take long.

We buried the third and last goldfish, Cocoa, under the raspberries this morning.

Three goldfish dead in the space of a week under our care.

Does it make you a little worried about my children?

Don't be.

I promise that we fed them enough, changed the water using the water conditioner, and made sure the water temperature was right. We did everything we were supposed to do.

It was just not meant to be.

Hallelujah!!!!

And you know what?  Nobody seems to feel that bad.

Especially me.

(Oh, and I think we will change "Nice Crab's" name to Houdini, since it seems he has just disappeared... out of the fish tank... that has a lid on it. Gone. Just like that into thin air.)

Dreams and Nightmares

Easter morning Ashton woke up after having a dream about owning a turtle with the desire and determination to have one of his own. Last Friday night, that dream came true since he had worked hard for and saved enough money to finally buy this Russian Tortoise.

Her name is Ricky; the short and feminine version of Richard, Ashton's dad. Can you tell my kids idolize their father?

I was not particularly fond of the thought of this purchase, but look at the smile on that boy's face? He even kissed her shell the other day when he took her school. Gross, I know. But how do you say "no" to a love like that? If you're a sucker like me, you don't....and you end up the co-owner of a turtle that will probably outlive you.

And this is where my nightmare begins. 

You can't have 4 kids and have only one of them get a pet. The others let out cries of unfairness and protest favoritism, so your husband takes them to the store and comes home with ...no not another turtle, but 3 goldfish and 2 very creepy arachnid-esqe crabs. I know it is probably just payback from all the birds, lizards, hermit crabs, and turtles that I as a girl tormented my own parents with. But fish? Why did they have to want fish? Really, is there any pet stinkier than fish?


Anyway, our aquatic family members have been dubbed Cocoa, Jason, and Chad (who as of yesterday, is now swimming in the greater waters above. YES! I mean...How sad). Ben's crab is named Anchor and Emma's is "Nice Crab" as she so lovingly calls it.
 

Within the space of 24 hours we went from being a one psychotic cat family to a seven blended pet family.

A horrific nightmare, indeed.

Now I have six five more strange, stinky, slimy, scaly, somewhat freaky, and helpless individuals to help take care of....

Okay, maybe it is do-able.

It's not too much of a stretch from having kids.

Just kidding...I really do love them.

The kids that is.

"Snailsville" Population 6

This summer Ashton and Dallin played a lot with the Ockey boys, Jared and Owen. One day after playing together, they showed up at our house with a few garden snails out of Tamra's (Jared & Owen's mom) garden. I thought they would just watch them for a while and then let them go. Well a day later, and 2 snails more, I realized they were serious about keeping them.

To avoid the "cool-whip carton coffin" fate for the snails, we searched the internet for instructions on how to care for them and went to Petsmart for a real "cage" for the snails.

Yes, I know, I am a pushover.

We enjoyed watching the snails, they were easy to care for, and Ashton took care of them really well... until the newness wore off. Then they were just stinky and one more thing that I had to worry about.

As it got closer to fall and cold weather I kept asking him to release them so they would have time to burrow before it got too cold. My pleas fell on deaf ears, until about a month ago when Ashton came to me and said he was going to release the snails. I WAS ESTATIC! I was finally going to be rid of "Snailsville".

We were discussing where to release them when Ashton looking in their container said, "What are are those little things? (Pause) Oh my gosh, those are babies!!!"

Sure enough, I looked in and there were what seemed to be a million little snails everywhere! There were really only 48, but that put "Snailsville's" population up to 62!

It was then, I thought either God hates me or He must really enjoy a good practical joke.

Now that babies were involved, Ashton's argument became that they would never survive the winter, so we needed to keep them until spring!! Of course, our reply was- No Way! If one could have babies then the others could too and what would I do with hundreds of baby snails in the middle of winter!

He mulled it over for a few weeks and last Saturday he released all but 6 snails. The lucky six- three big and 3 baby snails. Not exactly what I had in mind, but a compromise I could make.

A top view of "Snailsville" and the lucky 6.

It was a good thing he released them when he did, because when we cleaned out their container there were 2 big egg clusters buried in the dirt containing about 60 eggs each.

The buried egg clusters. (The white masses in the middle of the pic.)

I sincerely hope that we have a baby free winter, but if not and you get the hankering for escargot I know where you can get some snails real cheap!