Brief update of fish, no fish and cicadas

A quick update on a post from earlier in the month...

My lone angelfish is thriving (so far!). In fact, it spends more time out on display now than it does hiding. I should know from past experience that angels like to be solitary creatures.

We've taken a couple of spins on the pond this week.  The fish aren't biting that well, but I did manage to catch a few (including a big one!).  At least I remembered my camera and got some photos this time.  The first will appear in my SSS entry this weekend.

The cicadas are STILL singing at full blast.  They sound like they've changed location a bit, but they're still at it.  I've seen several clinging to the window screen when I've opened my bedroom blinds in the mornings.  I've also seen a number of carcasses littering the yard.  I even had one bean me right between the eyes when I was out scooping poop in the backyard last week! 

Fish, No Fish, and Cicadas

I currently have two tropical fish tanks, a 23-gallon hex-front flat-back in the kitchen and a 55-gallon rectangular tank in the living room.  The kitchen tank houses a gourami and a tiger barb.  The larger tank has two glowlight tetras and three large silverdollar fish.  I recently saw the cutest little angelfish at WalMart and decided to buy some for both tanks.  In addition, I got a plecostomus for each tank to cut down on the need for algae scraping.  *sigh*  My fish obviously didn't roll out the welcome-wagon for the newcomers.  Both the plecostomus and the angel I put in the small tank are dead.  I found the bones of the former this morning and all traces of the latter were gone within the first 24 hours!  Of the three angels and one plecostomus I put in the larger tank, only one lone angel remains.  I've noticed it hides all the time.  Good luck little angel!

We've had so much wind and bad weather lately we haven't been able to do any fishing.  We finally gave it a go yesterday evening.  Temperatures have been fairly chilly during the past week and there is a lot of new water in the pond, so I wasn't sure how well we would do.  It was really slow at first, but my husband ended up catching three - one of them fairly large.  Me?  Nothing.  Nada.  Zip.  The sad thing is I forgot to carry my camera with me and I missed some nice photo opportunities.  Cows, Cormorants, Canada Geese....all sorts of nice "naturey" things.  Oh, well.  Maybe next time.

I should have waited a week to post about the Cicadas.  The volume of their "singing" has doubled and there's no doubt now what is making it.  It's truly amazing!! 

Salmon Pot-Pie

I found a version of this recipe online and changed it around to come up with the following:

Salmon Pot-Pie

1 large onion, chopped
minced garlic to taste
3 Tablespoons butter, divided
1-1/4 cups 2% milk
1 pkg. (8 oz.) cream cheese, softened, cubed
1 pkg. (12 oz.) mixed vegetables, thawed
1 can (15 oz.) diced potatoes, drained
1 can (14.75 oz.) pink salmon, drained and flaked
salt and pepper to taste
10 sheets phyllo dough (14 in. x 9 in.)

In a large skillet, saute onion and garlic in 2 tablespoons butter until tender. Add milk; heat over medium heat until bubbles form around side of pan. Add cream cheese; stir until melted. Remove from heat; stir in vegetables, potatoes, salmon, salt and pepper.

Spray the bottom and sides of a 2-1/2 quart round baking dish with non-stick cooking spray. Line with half of the phyllo dough. Pour in salmon mixture. Cover with remaining phyllo dough then brush with remaining tablespoon of melted butter. Bake at 375F for 30 minutes or until crust is lightly browned.


We all thought it was good, but agreed that we would prefer it with chicken next time.

Ramblings

There wasn't a FreeVerse at Cara's today, so I'll save the entry I had prepared and use it next week. Instead, I'll just ramble a bit.

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When I drove into town for a haircut today I encountered one of my pet peeves on the road. It's a peeve that irritates me so much that I devoted an entire entry to it here. This time it was a pre-teen boy riding a four-wheeler down the middle of the road drinking a soda. He must have been near the bottom of the can since he was tilting his head way back and weaving all over the road in the process! He finally realized I was behind him and eased a little to the left while motioning me with his right hand to pass. I wanted to glare as I went by, but he left me so little room to pass that I had to focus on the road instead. Grrr!!

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Suzy was exploring the living room her first day in the house and made an interesting discovery in the tiny space between the 55 gallon fishtank and the wall. I had wondered what happened to those two giant danios that disappeared!

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Today was one of those fun occasions when an "imaginary friend" became real. (that's how Marion's husband use to refer to her internet pals) Anyway.... Debby and I have e-mailed some and not long ago she suggested we talk on the phone sometime. I tried calling her on her birthday, but nobody was home so I just had to leave my birthday greeting on the answering machine. She let me know when her days off work were and I was able to catch her at home this afternoon. It was a fun visit! I have a feeling we could talk for hours given the time and opportunity. She seemed quite entertained by my southern accent. What she doesn't know is that I was making a conscious effort to not sound too southern so she'd be able to understand me!!

Death of an Angel

I’m sad to announce the death of my ancient angelfish. Like the plecostomus I lost last fall, I don’t know exactly how old she was. Her tank was moved from our bedroom to the kitchen a number of years ago and I’d already had her for several years at that point. I’m guessing she was at least 12, if not older.

Odd to think that I was thirty-something when I got her (I’m 50 now). The photo I’ve provided is poor, but you can see that over her life she sustained some damage to her fins. She was a very aggressive fish and never played well with others. I finally learned to keep her in a tank alone. It was fun how she would follow your finger around when placed against the tank. Wanting to attack it, I'm sure, but it made her more "personable".

I’ll miss her.

A turnover

I’ve mentioned the problem with water lilies and grass in our pond in previous entries. Several years ago we brought some large grass carp (supposedly sterile since they can also take over a pond) from our farm in the delta to “work” on the problem. In addition, we purchased some smaller carp a year or two later.

They just haven’t done much to alleviate the problem. So… my husband has begun the process of spraying the unwanted vegetation with an herbicide. I say “begun the process” because it’s not something that can be done all at once, even in a pond the size of ours. Once the vegetation begins to die, it sucks all the oxygen out of the water around it. Obviously, that isn’t good for the fish!! He’s gone out on several occasions, including a few of the times we’ve fished, and sprayed various areas of the pond. So far it seems to be working.

This past weekend we saw an example of what happens when the process is NOT done correctly. Our neighbor has a small pond in front of her house. She wanted to kill all the grass around the edge of her pond and, against the advice of others, sprayed the entire circumference at one time. It was a disaster!! Within a short time her pond started “turning over” and there were dead fish floating everywhere! They quickly borrowed a pump and began aerating the pond, thus stopping the process.

There were TONS of buzzards standing on the bank of her pond when we drove past yesterday morning.

At least someone benefited from the mistake.

Something fishy here

Now here's something you don't see every day.

Sept. 7, 2008 05:33 PM
Associated Press

LITTLE ROCK, Ark.- It's a fishing tale that packs a wallop so strong it broke the jaw of a southeastern Arkansas teen and covered him in fish blood and guts. Seth Russell, 15, of Crossett, was cruising Lake Chicot on a large inner tube towed by a boat when a Silver Asian carp leaped from the water and smacked him in the face. Seth was knocked unconscious.
"He doesn't remember anything at all," the boy's mother, Linda Russell, said last week. "He was laughing, and the next thing he remembers, he is waking in a hospital."
The teen has had oral surgery to wire several teeth together and still experiences back pain that doctors attribute to whiplash from the high-speed collision, his mother said.
He's not the only one who's had a run-in with the "flying" Silver Asian carp."They do not fly, but they are quite good jumpers," said Carole Engle, director of aquaculture and the fisheries center at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff. "Over the past year, we have had some calls about fish jumping and causing injuries on Lake Chicot."Their jumping behavior is a problem, and their population appears to be growing there," Engle said. Silver Asian carp were first imported to the United States in the 1970s. Catfish farmers brought them here to remove algae and other suspended matter from their ponds. The Environmental Protection Agency started a program allowing cities to use them to help clean the water in sewer treatment plant ponds.

We use to grow catfish in the Arkansas Delta. A few years ago we transferred a few of the carp from there to the pond we have at home in an attempt to control the weeds and grass. (see photo)

While on the topic of fish, I have another sad loss to report. I looked in my 55 gallon fishtank this morning and my plecostomus was dead!! I don't remember exactly what year I bought him, but I know when I moved my tank eight years ago he was already a few years old. I'm guessing he was around ten. A mere inch or two in length when I brought him home, he'd grown to a good 8" or better. Too big to flush! Sadly, I dipped him out (with a large net) and bagged him up for the garbage. I have no pictures of him, but this Wikipedia entry will give you a good idea of what he looked like.