I got a serracenia seedling when I order 3 VFTs from bugbitingplants. Tnis morning I prepared a pot for it - 1 part peat moss and 1 part perlite - plus lots of water. I read that these guys love waterlogged soil. The ideal medium is Long Fibered Sphagnum, but I couldn’t find it in my local garden store.
We’ll see how it goes.
I’ve been waiting over a week for my order of VFTs to arrive, and yesterday, they did. They came in invidividual plastic 3″ pots, each covered with another transparent plastic cup to retain moisture. The pots were pretty banged up and dirty, but from the look of the traps I’d say the VFTs are doing pretty well.
Fortunately we have Reverse-Osmosis water as our drinking water, so that’s what I used to water these babies. If you don’t have that you should use distilled water. Watering a VFT with tap water kills it because there’s too much minerals in tap water.
I placed them next to a window that gets morning sun, and now all I can do now is wait to see if they thrive.
Here’s what I’m reading at the moment. I just prefer non-fiction.
I’ve always been fascinated with Carnivorous Plants. Used to keep Venus Fly Traps in the past, but now I’m going to start my collection all over again. This is a great book that instructs you how to keep CPs and a little history into their origins.
Yesterday I went to Babies R Us and got Rebecca an activity center from Bright Starts. Spent the evening assembling it, and this morning, Rebecca had her first testdrive of the thing. She loved it! It’s so cool seeing her trying to figure the toys out.
Rebecca can hold her sit pretty well now. Here she is playing with the milk bottle cover. Ahh, the simple pleasures.
I can’t believe the weather this weekend! It was unbearable! We had to have the AC turned on the whole day, and the minute you walk outside, the heat just engulfs you. We had well over 90’s on Saturday and Sunday. Last night, Rebecca was running a fever, I think from the tiring trip to SF, as well as the heat in general. Charlotte and Cayenne spent the day lying on our hardwood floors (see picture) and panting most of the time. Clover had a bath to cool down. Our ice-maker couldn’t keep up with ice production with the rate we used it today. Staying indoors and drinking lots of water is my advice to people in the Bay Area.
When I say “Fishy Fishy” Rebecca gets excited. She knows what it means from her aquarium-themed playgym as well as the decor on her room wall. So today we took her to see the REAL fishies - the SF Bay Aquarium. The look she had was priceless - a mixture of awe, surprise and curiosity. Will my little girl grow up to be a Marine Biologist?
See more pics here.
I caught the latest ad from VW - The Rabbit is Back. Cute. Nice piece of marketing. I somehow think its geared towards women, especially those who like cute stuff. It got me to check out the VW site. The Rabbit turns out to be the new Golf. I remember that they had something called the “Rabbit” a while back, hence the caption.
Pretty affordable at $14K. Comes in 4 doors too. It’s VW’s Civic. I’m always a sucker for cute things. hehe.
We took Rebecca to the Pediatrician yesterday and she had three shots. This time she was more aware of it, and started crying. By the third shot she was wailing. Poor girl.
Tonight she didn’t seem to feel well, cried more often than usual, but she seem to enjoy playing with her new wooden toy blocks.
She had fever last night and I gave her some Infant Tylenol. It has grape flavor, and she loved the taste of it. This morning she looked and felt better. I hope the effect of the shots wear off today.
There are quite a variety of birds in my backyard - Chickadees, Titmice, Robins - and then there’s the squirrels. I’ve seen three of them so far, and they have discovered my bird feeder. Everyday at different times of the day, they would make their way down the tree and get some of the sunflower seeds from the feeder. See that picture I took.
I then found out that you should place your feeder 8 feet away from anywhere that squirrels can jump off from, and that feeder is definitely less than 8 feet away from the tree trunk.
Now I’ve placed it further away from the trunk and I’m trying to see if the squirrels still can find a way to get the food. I don’t want to end up not putting the feeder up since I enjoy bird watching. I will keep you guys updated.
There is a tennis center right across from my house, and this morning my friends, Doug and I had our first tennis lesson. We seem to pick up a new sport of recreation activity every Summer, and this year its tennis. I kinda like tennis, its certainly not as expensive as golf, and is sure to burn more calories. I will hold out on getting my own racquet, now I’m borrowing one from my friend.
It was scorching today, but good thing it wasn’t as bad as I expected at the Mountain View dog park, where we took Charlotte and Cayenne to to meet their Rat Terrier buddies. Even though there weren’t any trees, there was a breeze blowing, so that was good.
Copper, Allie, Poppa Louie, Buddy, Bailey, Pogo, Snickers, and Samba were there and it was great seeing all of them again. I love our monthly meetups coz C and C get to meet their friend again, and we get to catch up on things with their owners. Great fun. This month Poppa Louie made his debut into our group - Valerie, Allie’s Mom, decided to take that big step and get another puppy. Now Allie has a little brother to play with, and he’s just so affectionate and adorable. Doug seems to like him a lot heheh.
We had our Housewarming Party today and what a turnout! My friend Lisa was first to arrive at about 2:30pm, and she brought us fresh caught rock fish from Half Moon Bay.
More and more guests arrived shortly after, and soon we had about 30 people in our house, not counting the fur kids - we had Maura, the 7 month old Chocolate Lab, Allie and Poppa the Rat Terriers, Molly the Yorkie, and Charlotte and Cayenne - 6 doggies in da house!
They were all pretty ok with each other except for Cayenne and Maura, who I think was caused by a bad first encounter. The minute Maura entered our house she chased Cayenne around the kitchen. I could hear Cayenne let out a scream of horror, and that was it - she wasn’t going to make friends with this big teddy bear, ever. So she just barked everytime she saw Maura, and that lasted throughout the whole party. Everyone tried to calm her down, but no one was successful in doing so, not even me. Charlotte, on the other hand, was the perfect hostess - she made her rounds, greeted everyone who came into the house, and was on her best behavior.
Rebecca surprised us by being so calm in the midst of all the people and the noise. She even allowed a couple of our friends to carry her. I’m so proud of her, since it was the first time she saw so many people in a particular place.
My Mother-in-law prepared most of the food, and it was quite a spread. We also had BBQ chicken wings, Lamb Satay, and beef steak. I contributed by making two trays of Shepherd’s Pie.
When the last guests left, we were all exhausted, but happy that the party went wonderfully without any major drama.
We went to the park last evening and enjoyed songs from the 80’s from a band called Tainted Love. Rebecca was pretty excited seeing all the people gathered there - families with babies, with doggies, enjoying a warm evening on the grass, listening to music.
This is a blog about a Mom and her life with her husband, toddler daughter, two rat terriers, one green-cheeked conure, and one leopard gecko. Web developer by day, gamer by night.
