Bowl of guppies

Remember the guppies that were outside swimming under a water lily? Probably not. Well, if you know anything about guppies, you might be relieved to hear that I brought them inside about a month ago, when the nights began to cool.

Raccoons

Unlike the skunks, who stroll by every night all bold and leisurely, the raccoons sneak around in darkness.  You might get up for a late-night pee and hear gnawing and chewing and noshing; and when you peer down from upstairs, there’s a raccoon emptying the bird feeders. Or you might be sitting by the window [...]

The water lily and the guppies

This is why I keep guppies–for the water lily. One water lily in a free-standing black tub. Keeping even such a small lily pond means setting up a whole system. I add  hornwort and anachris to aerate the water. I add water hyacinths to help clear the water with their roots and for a few [...]

That’s Mr. James Madison to you

Sue is still pretty. He’s still the star of the guppy tank with his flaring red tail all fanned out.
The sons of Sue are indeed sons. They’re not quite as big as Sue, but each are clearly chips of the rainbow-sided block .
And they’re all doing their best to become dads.

Sons of Sue

My guppy named Sue is turning out to be quite beautiful, if I may say so. I love his flowing flaming tail, the rainbow shimmer on his sides, and the blue-white flags of his fins. If you can believe these blurry pictures.
Despite my earlier fears, the tank hasn’t filled with baby guppies yet.There’s still just [...]

A Guppy Named Sue

Well, well, well. Look who turned about to be a boy after all. The one pretty guppy of the six sisters is now quite beautiful, with a flaming red tail, and shiny white flag, and gleaming sides. So he has a name, now. Sue.

Do guppies say cheese?

I seem to have veered off in a new direction. Take a picture. Write about it. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. It’s easy to do most days, except I can’t really call it a direction.
Worse, today we had dimsum, but didn’t take any pictures. And we went for a long walk, but didn’t take any pictures. And [...]

Who are these guppies?

I noticed before that there’s just too damn many guppies to keep track of. Or there used to be. Now I’m looking at the tank going, What happened to Mama Black? Where’s Speckles and Neon and Tiger Stripe? Or Paint Box? There’s just six girls, all black tails, the Black Sisters, I guess. No it’s [...]

Guppies are pretty … awful

When I was a kid, I just saw guppies as pretty. Now I see them with different eyes. The males constantly harassing the females. The females constantly at some stage of pregnancy. The fry always in danger of being eaten. But they don’t all get eaten, and some of them are turning out quite pretty.

Gulpies

Gulped. That’s what happened to the first few babies that popped out of my new guppies.