Happy New Year, and happy Caturday! I don't have a cat of my own, so I'd like to share a couple of the fine felines who live at a local zoological sanctuary. All four of the bobcats they currently have are rescues who couldn't be released back into the wild; these two spend a lot of time lounging around together on one of the ledges built for them to climb on. There IS a fence between them and me, but I was able to get a lot closer than most visitors do this time as part of…
The other day I stopped by Dollar Tree for a couple of things. While I was there I spotted this assortment of artificial succulent picks in the floral section. I've never seen them at either of the two local stores; they usually just have the slightly smaller ones in pots. These are a really nice size and they come in a variety of both colors and shapes. I ended up buying seven of them; they'll end up going in Cheeto's new vivarium, probably as part of the climbing ledges…
It's 2022, and what better way to kick of the new year than tackling a project you've been putting off? This is the very beginning of the new vivarium build I'm doing for Cheeto. I started off by sanitizing the sandstone pavers in a bleach solution and placing them at the bottom of the vivarium. Then I added the substrate, which is a mixture of sifted organic topsoil and washed play sand. The rocks on the right form a small cave that Cheeto will be able to safely dig in if…
Speaking of projects I've been putting off... I sat down and disassembled my laptop tonight, hoping I'd be able to get the part number off the display cable that (probably) needs replacing. The bad news is that I couldn't confirm the part number. If there's a label on that cable, it's on the side that's up in the display assembly and I wasn't about to disassemble that tonight. The good news is that when I reassembled the thing and powered it back on, the screen flicker was…
Tonight happened to be time to deep clean Cheeto's enclosure, so he got to roam around his new home a bit. There was a lot of belly-dragging slinking and awkward sidestepping as he traipsed up and down the rocks. He was excited enough to go home after his field trip that he just about dove off my hand before I was able to set him down properly. 🤣 Next time he visits, his new home will have more clutter so he doesn't feel as exposed as he did this time.
Happy Side-Eye Sunday! ...of course I know that's not a thing. Don't tell Waffle, though. He'll be sad to find out that he's been perfecting that look for nothing. 🤣
Waffle and Cheeto will never meet. This is why. Waffle went from zero to "I'm going to fight you!" as soon as Cheeto came too close for his liking today. Unlike with the hornworm at Christmas, this time he DID launch himself off the cholla branch trying to get at Cheeto. The door was shut, and Cheeto was absolutely unbothered by the much bigger lizard slamming himself against the acrylic and bobbing his head at him. There really isn't an ounce of self preservation in that…
Bun Bun isn't camera shy. Far from it, in fact--she cheerfully bounces up to it as soon as she notices it's there. And therein lies the problem, because it means the majority of the pictures I try to take of her turn out like the second and third ones on this post. 🤣
Found this lovely little guy while digging through my Lightroom archives today. 🥰 This was taken on the same behind-the-scenes sanctuary tour as the pair of bobcats I shared the other day. While most of the experience is getting to go behind the barriers and into some of the enclosures to get closer to the animals that live there, the keepers also bring some of the animals out of their enclosures. Max here is one of my favorites to see during that part of the tour because he…
How about a wild scaly for a change of pace? This Gila monster is a resident at the local zoological sanctuary, where he's lived since he was found in a flood. They're native to the southern part of my state, but it's effectively illegal to interact with them in any way. Unlike most of the other native lizard species around here, Gila monsters are venomous. They don't inject their venom like snakes do, though. It just kind of flows into the bite wound as they chew on their…
Peekaboo! The Divine Beast made her first appearance of 2022 last night. She's been holed up in her warm cave digesting since I fed her on Thursday, but she finally ventured out to curl up behind the cave with her head peeking over the top.
Waffle was posed like this when I went downstairs earlier. I thought I'd post this with a caption about how he seems to have made a fitness resolution for the new year, but... well, you can see just what he thought of that idea. Tongue Out Tuesday it is! 😂
I've mentioned before that I like boosting my stake total by monetizing things that I already do. Today I'd like to touch on a method that helped me get through the earliest steps of my doubling challenge: shopping through cash back websites. There are a lot of cash back websites out there, but the three that I use most frequently are TopCashback, Rakuten, and RetailMeNot. I'm not particularly loyal to one over another; I just go with whichever site is offering the highest…
I can't help stopping to look at the scaly critters whenever I stop in to pick up an order from the local pet stores... which is how we ended up with Waffle... and Cheeto... and the Divine Beast. 😳 Most of the reptile cages were empty when I went in to pick up my most recent order, but I was looking through some of my photos from last year and found this one of a gaggle of geckos. These five should be roughly the same size as Cheeto is now, since this was taken only a couple…
Another frosty morning, another frosty fern pic. One of these days I'll actually remember to take my DSLR and the macro lens with me in the morning, but for now macro mode on my phone seems to work pretty well.
I ordered an Arcadia deep heat projector for Cheeto's new enclosure a few days ago. Most of the time I find that PetSmart has much better sale prices on their website than in their stores, but while I was browsing before picking up my order I found that the in-store price on them is actually the better deal for a change. I would have stocked up on them then and there, but I still need to confirm if the 80 watt DHP I bought will work for Cheeto's enclosure or if I'll have to…
Do your pets like to help you? Every so often, Bun Bun actually pauses long enough to hang out with me when I'm writing. Of course it's all a clever plan to get within nibbling distance of my notebook... they'd probably be one of her favorite snacks if I let her get to them! 😆
It's been a little more than a week since I last fed the Divine Beast. Usually she'd have been out and thumping about looking for her next meal by now, but she's just been chilling behind her warm cave for the last few days. She seems to like that spot when she's getting ready to shed, so I suspect she'll be in blue pretty soon.
My replacement fan and heat sink showed up today. I just finished installing it. The job took me about 30 minutes from start to finish, and a lot of that time was spent getting a stripped screw to cooperate and removing the old thermal compound from the processor before installing the new heat sink. The attached photo is of the new fan assembly just before I closed up the case for testing.
Cheeto has discovered that he can train his humans. It took a few tries, but he has successfully conditioned them to refill his bowl of bugs when he signals them that it's time by shoving it across his enclosure. They're so well-trained that they'll even heed his summons from outside of his room! He just has to commit to making a teeny tiny little racket about it to get his way. 🤣
I don't see Ed very often these days; between it being winter and the way we've reduced his feeding schedule to help him lose some weight he's been spending most of his time kinda sorta brumating under his rocks. But he heard me banging around when I changed his burned out basking light this morning, and now he's patiently waiting for me to drop some more bugs in for him. 😂
The Divine Beast was out last night... sort of. She'd draped her head and neck over her warm hide and one of the birch logs, and the rest of her body was coiled up in that spot she likes behind it. She's still in blue, so she wasn't very happy when I opened the enclosure to add a bit more water to her dish and her substrate. The pose she's taken in this picture is somewhere between "I'm outta here" and "I'm gonna chomp ya if you get too close." It might sound a bit…
Leopard geckos are terrestrial lizards. Unlike other gecko species, they don't have sticky pads on their feet that allow them to climb vertical surfaces. They do like climbing, though, so every once in a while I'll look over at Cheeto's enclosure and see him sitting on top of one of his hides like this.
I've decided to call this photo "The Opportunist." It's probably a self-explanatory title, but yes, Waffle did decide to take advantage of the fact that I'd opened the door within the few seconds it took me to set up the shot I was going to take.
Bun Bun loves the timothy biscuit treats we get for her. She'd just inhale them if we let her, so sometimes we make her work for them by putting them into her wicker balls.
The Divine Beast has finished her shed. She spent a fair bit of time lounging in front of her warm cave last night, and today it's back to haunting the coconut like normal. 😁
I just swung by PetSmart on the way to pick my kids up from school. This is my haul: two jumbo "Hol-ee Roller" dog toys (and a bag of apple timothy biscuits for the bunny). One of the dog toys is for the Divine Beast; with how much enjoyment she gets out of her coconut, it's probably a given that she's going to love weaving in and out of the sections on these balls. The other? Beats me. I just added a second one to my cart because they were buy one, get one half off. 😅
If you give a snake a ball... She'll go in and out and in and out and in and out and in and out and in and out and... Yeah, safe to say she's really enjoying herself. 😁 I can't wait for the new toy smell to dissipate so I can actually put this into her enclosure for her to use whenever she pleases.
Valentine's Day is just around the corner. Love is in the air... and the freezer, apparently. I spotted these "Nuggets of Love" at Walmart this morning and had to laugh. Chicken nuggets aren't exactly readily associated with the holiday, but they're trying. 😂
Poor Bun Bun. She just wants one little timothy biscuit instead of the same boring timothy hay and pellets that's been in her dish for a whole hour since it was refilled, but her humans have been preoccupied with pesky tasks like folding laundry. Won't someone think of the poor adorable bunny wasting away without her treat? 🥺
I'm not really afraid of things that go bump in the night, but every once in awhile the Divine Beast manages to crash off her suspended coconut hide in particularly noisy fashion. This was immediately after her most recent mishap tonight. Note the feigned innocence. She absolutely isn't responsible for the ridiculous crashing that echoes through the house on nights she's out and about.
I got into the habit of checking the local pet listings on Craigslist back when Bun Bun first came to live with us in November 2020. I don't really have much of a reason to keep up with them, but I still pull the page up at least every few days to see what's new. This morning, one of the new postings is from someone looking to rehome both a bearded dragon and a leopard gecko. Apparently they were taken in from someone who wasn't able to care for them, and now the current…
Meet Vrtra, one of our two newest additions! This poor sweetheart was absolutely miserable when I first met him this afternoon, and with good reason--there's no fun in having one's enclosure manhandled into the cold back of a truck and then driven off to who knows where like that. He wasn't sure what to think of me pulling him out of the enclosure after we got it upstairs, either. I put him into the bathtub temporarily so I could pull out the substrate he came with (a…
My first post this morning was supposed to be an introduction to the second of the lizards I rescued yesterday. Then this happened, and well... yeah. Vrtra/breakfast is my new OTP. He dug right in as soon as I set the bowl down. 😅
And here he is, the gecko of the hour: Cookies and Cream. Based on the pictures in listing I honestly thought that he was going to be the worse off of the two lizards I brought home last night. Leopard geckos store fat in their tails, and as you can see this poor guy isn't much more than skin and bones. He's been incredibly underfed for a while. He's actually not in terribly bad shape beyond that, though. He's been temporarily moved into our 10 gallon quarantine tank because…
What a difference a day and a half has made! Vrtra slept atop his rock last night, and this morning I woke up to him scrape-thumping down off it to munch on his salad. He made a mess of things after, and wasn't too sure what he thought about the paper towel I was using to sanitize the glass after cleaning it up. I got a full black bearded puff pancake hissy fit for my efforts! 😆 Once he chased me and my paper towel off he climbed back up on the rock and sat there bobbing his…
HE KNOWS. 😭 For the last few days, we've been getting these disapproving glares from Waffle whenever we walk into the room. He hasn't seen Vrtra at all--we took Vrtra and his enclosure upstairs immediately after I brought him home, and Waffle lives downstairs--but he's still not very happy about having a second male beardie in the house. It makes me wonder if it goes the other way, too, and some of Vrtra's head bobbing is because he knows Waffle is relatively close.
What's worse than a case of the Mondays? A case of the Mondays that happens to coincide with Shed Day. Or so Waffle tells me; I'll have to defer to his expertise on the matter.
We've had Cookies and Cream for just under 96 hours. The first picture is from shortly after I brought him home. The other is from just a little while ago as I was giving him some of the waxworms that just arrived. Isn't it amazing what a difference just a few days of proper feeding can make? It's almost hard to believe that's the same gecko in both pics.
@yukimori