twinkles

it's gorgeous I could never draw fish

livingart - perfectly legal here sadly, most councils now have rules on this sort of thing but ours is lagging behind. So i've found out the Horizons ratepayer meeting on the 2012-13 river and drainage scheme is next thursday (eep!) Trying to get a formal plan in place before then, and some people to come with me to present it. Formed a facebook group to connect peoples up - http://www.facebook.com/groups/160955410698054/ And going to go around some local places today and try to gather some support, like the kohunga reo which is next to one of the streams. And will go along and photograph all the little stream which run into the river along that stretch. Etc. Definately need to set it up as a trust as suggested, but have no idea how to do that. Will ask around today and hopefully find someone keen to work on that part of it. Then we could apply for grants for plants etc. I worked out it would take 50,000 seedlings just to do a tiny strip along the waters edge. But i'm sure we could split it up into lots of parts and get different community groups and things working on their own parts, and collect alot of donations for planting.

Thanks :thup: I'll have to go round and get some better pics to put up for i.d's on the small aquatic plants in there, would love to work out what they all are..

I could watch that for hours

And now I also have a new plan. The rest of the river margin, upstream and down from here, is all grazing land - a stretch of several kms with our town alongside it, and on this side all community owned land 'cared for' by the council. It's all leased as cattle grazing, with them standing in the water daily and nothing but grass, blackberry and cow poo. So i've extended my mission and want to remove the cows, riparian plant the whole length, and have a bush reserve and floodplain that has a positive effect on the water quality rather than the filth it picks up at the moment as it travels through our town. Don't really know how we'll achieve this but i'm determined that we will. Everyone complains about the way it is, but no one's got around to complaining to the right people or coming up with a plan to rectify it. I'm thinking the best way to start would be to write up a proposal covering what we'd like done and what it would take to implement, benefits etc, then take it to the council and see what they say. Then when they refuse get some community backing to change their minds. Given that the council has lovely sounding brochures about repairing our waterways, fencing stock away from rivers etc, and presents itself as clean and green and caring for our environment, they should come round eventually, even if it's only to save themselves looking like hypocrites. Anyway if anyone's got any suggestions or links to info I can include please fire away, it's a bit daunting but i'm sick of walking down there and seeing cows standing in the river, globs of algae bloom and no fish.

Haven't been on here for a couple of years - we had no internet for ages and i've had alot of other stuff going on. But still pop in to read the boards when I can and thought it was way past time for an update on this Clearance work started at the end of 2009, finished and replanting started in autumn 2010, then some more the next summer, then it's been left alone since. Current pic - The water is covered by that red plant stuff, with a few clear patches, but it's holding water still over this patch of dry weather. On the far side of water towards the right you can see the council's attempt at planting, they put in those few clumps of grasses. The big green bushy patch in the middle of the pic is the small trees they left, and behind those and the grasses are alot of native shrubs and things that are about 1m high now, down to the river. The red sticks down in the water, and the green bits off to the left are willow, happily regrowing from the bits they dropped when clearing them. The ones out of site away to the left are getting big enough to stop water flowing, far worse than before. :facepalm: Since they've finished messing round and aren't going to do anymore here, we're going to take over and get stuck in over the next few months improving it. Cut down alot of willow, walnut etc that's been trying to regrow and took it away for goat food, but heaps more needs doing. We're looking at clearing all the weeds off the near side of the water, putting in some coconut matting stuff, and planting it all out properly, but need to learn a bit more about exactly what to plant first. It needs grassy bush things to go down by the water and provide hiding spots for the fish of course, but also some tall sun-blocking things to shade it and stop the green water and so forth. Waiting for DOC to get back to me with their riparian planting guide before we decide exactly what would be best. The near side is the north side, so that's where we can create the most shade over the water, and part of it is owned by us so we can go ahead and plant stuff without having to get permission. On the plus side - what they did plant is growing well, we've wiped out the possums, and lots of aquatic life has returned to the water. There's frogs, bullies and bizillions of mayfly babies, backswimmers etc, and probably more things hiding in there that i haven't spotted. Just need to get busy and improve it a bit more

cool thanks, you've got me curious now

are they real torties and real boys? Not gingery brown tabbies? What breed? Male torties are rare, don't know what the chances are but it must be one in thousands. I know one main coon breeder had a tortie boy, but he died before they could test breed him to see what he produced.

yup, and tortie boys are real freaks that either have an extra female chromosome so they are xxy instead of xy. And some are merged twins, and have a whole second set of genes from their sister who was absorbed, strange goings on lol. But despite what people will tell you male torties only have ginger or black boys, if they are even fertile, so they're not worth anything special for breeding either.

i think its 75% of gingers are boys and 25% are girls, roughly Its because the the 'non-ginger' gene which makes them tortieshell is carried by the girls, so some ginger girls have black show as well and are tortieshell, while the other half are just ginger.

Well here's some good news After a few days in the bare tank the heater i was using for it failed, so i had to put him back in his own tank. A couple of days after that I went to see how he was getting on, and he looked fine! Been a few days now and he looks perfectly normal, his scales can't be seen, his tummy isn't bloated, and he's destroying the tank again which he'd stopped while looking sick. So I think its safe to say that whatever was wrong with him probably wasn't dropsy, and he should be ok now No idea what fixed him, he probably got better himself, but he wasn't fed for the whole time he looked sick except for what algae he ate. He's never been keen on much food though so i don't think that made a difference. Anyway i'm glad he's looking better

there's animal breeding courses? please tell me more, i'd love something to mention to the people i hear of that announce they want to breed their spoodle/chidoxie/untested german shepherd. If the person who breed these guys had even the smallest shred of commonsense they'd still be with mum. I'll probably send the whole new puppy guide from dogster to their owners, its a pretty good overview of everything you need to know about puppies. And i'll send a guide to raw feeding, so they can continue their diet. Its going to be hard to find the right homes for them, don't want them being working dogs unless i can find some exceptional farmers. They'd be great agility dogs so i'll advertise them in those circles, and they'll make lovely pets too for active people. They'll be ready right around christmas time, so i imagine there'll be a few 'christmas puppy' people to weed out. But i'll be putting a price on them to cover their vaccinations so that should get rid of most people just wanting a cheap throwaway dog. And of course they can stay here as long as needed until I can find the right homes, i'll book them into puppy preschool and if they go locally they can continue it with their new people. I have a lovely border collie x lab at the moment too if anyone knows of anyone looking for a dog, she's 1 year old, lemon and white, and a real sweety. Lovely soft gentle well mannered dog, dumped in the middle of nowhere. Brilliant with kids, cats, other dogs etc.

thats great to hear She certainly deserves it

All of them playing - And Sweep grabbing that big fluffy thing that floats around - Sheba's not too sure what to do about this hehe

pics - Here's Dip - Jed - Sweep -

Here's an update :bounce: They turned 4 weeks on saturday, have grown so much its hard to believe. All around 2.2kgs, about 5 times what they were 4 weeks ago. Their colours/markings have changed heaps too, much more different from each other now. They're drinking from a bowl (yah no more bottles!), and eating food - whole prey chicken through the mincer for lunch, and chicken nibbles for breakfast and dinner, just the right size for them to cart around and practise their teeth on. One of them can get all the meat off now, the others are quickly getting there. Spending the days outside in our puppy pen and running around on the grass, they put themselves to sleep in the kennel when they get tired and take their bones with them lol. Inside at night when it gets cold though. Nice to be able to have them back together, it was hard having three seperate boxes to clean out. Will have to start advertising them soon, long time left before they can go though.

yes, they've finally got started the last few days. Had a sudden turn around from the council guy whereby we settled on a fenceline going through the area, and they are clearing between the fence and the river - all the big introduced trees and blackberry etc. Then they'll do the rockwork on the river edge, then they'll get started on the part behind the fence. Behind the fence is the swampland and the bush. We had to agree to removing the willows from the swamp, which will no doubt cause some major upsets, but they'll be immediatly replaced with cabbage trees, nikau, grasses and other native plants of the councils 'suitable native plants' list. So we've spent the last few days running over there every few hours to check what they're up to - don't trust the contractors to be bothered noticing what they're cutting. They've been given strict instructions on what not to cut, i.e there's a few big natives, one cabbage in particular, which are on the 'to clear' side of the fence, so they should be fine but we're keeping a close eye on it and ready to send them packing if they chop the wrong thing. Judging from the way they're dropping the big trees they're not very careful, they're crashing down any which way. Even though they have to go its awfully sad, there's something so powerful about watching and feeling the big ones drop. The poplars are huge, like 5 times the height of our house. The whole area is very strictly fenced off and patrolled, and we were told we're not allowed to check what they're up to unless we arrange a booked visit with the council guy - even on our land - but they don't realise we can walk out our backyard into the middle of the swamp so we are able to keep watching without having to argue the point. Grey ducks have taken off, hope they come back at the end Been reminding ourselves that it'll probably be awful for the next year, but by this time next year all the new planting will be taking off, it'll have been left in peace for a few months, and the birds should all be back. Then it'll be better in the long run once the natives establish themselves more and the blackberry is kept away.

he doesn't eat much, i'm sure he hasn't pigged out to cause it. Seems to be all over him but its hard to see since he shoots into his house whenever i try to look. I'll move him to the empty tank and put some salt and peas in, and see if that helps. Spare tank is sparkling clean and well planted though, i just use it to pull water out for the bettas, so should be healthy for him. Hope he's ok

mr. algae is our big chinese algae eater. He was fine the night before last, but when i looked at him last night he has pinecone scales He seems fine in every other way, but his scales look awful. He's in a 100l tank, other fish are fine (guppies, rainbows etc), nothing has changed recently. I have a spare 3 foot with just plants in it, should i move him to there? Its a bit warmer than his tank, 28 compared to 26. Should i try to feed him some peas in case he's bloated? He does look pretty round. Or dose the water with something? Any help appreciated, he's our favourite fishy and the biggest at 12cm.

i use mine on the garden, great for tomatoes etc. You could grow a few in pots to use your water so you're not wasting it? Otherwise unless you're changing massive volumes each week it would be hard to make it worthwhile, during the hot dry part of the year where you have to worry most about the tank level any water you set aside to recycle will evaporate really fast too, unless you keep it well covered or something?

awww and congratulations! hope you're doing all the running around for her after the c-section, mine were only 7lbs, normal births, and i was still exhuasted lol.

thanks

just to sound like a noob, what does AFAIK stand for? :oops:

any news on when it'll be open stella? I'll be making the trip over for a look as soon as it is

congrats you could also get dad neutered so they can still be friends without making more suprises