#critters!!!

[ohimsummer]

I’m about to be VERY annoying rn ehehe

[shmooperdoops]

Redraw!

 (they are in love don’t worry)

[sunlitmcgee]

i need to shower but hhhhpokemon

[radstag-ghoul]

LOOK AT MY SON

His name is Tadpole Jackson and he just grew legs!!! So proud of him 💚

[theemperorsfeather]

I decided to pull more of the deceased water hyacinths out of my water garden today (they are not cold-hardy and died last fall), to clean things up a bit - it feels like we’re in the early stages of spring now, daffodils and stuff are blooming, so I thought maybe I ought to remove some decaying stuff from the water garden. Anyway, as I was hauling out the hyacinth remains - which at this point is mostly their REALLY HUGE amazing root system, which doesn’t rot as fast as the dead foliage - I saw something small jetting around in the water. My first thought was mosquito young, but surely it’s too cold for that . . . It wasn’t a mosquito. It looked like one of those little “sand fleas” I see on beaches, some kind of little crustacean.

And there are LOTS of them in the water garden!! I disturbed more floating plant roots and SUDDENLY. TINY SHRIMPS. ALL OVER. (I don’t think they’re actually shrimp, they’re most likely some kind of amphipod.) I assume there must have been some attached to one or more of the aquatic plants I put in the “pond,” and they have had a population explosion.

Also exciting: the water lily has A BUNCH of tiny leaves starting to come up! They’re all close to the container the roots are in, and I imagine it’ll be weeks before they’re up to the surface, but I’m really glad to see them. The plant went dormant so early last fall I was afraid it had simply died. Maybe this summer I will get to see it bloom.

The “fairy moss” (azolla, a tiny fern, actually) also seems to have some survivors, too. I thought (hoped, even) the cold would kill all of it off . . . it spreads so fast . . . and I don’t want the whole pond surface covered with foliage. So either I need to try and remove ALL of it and not have any this year, or I’ll just have to keep on top of scooping handfuls out periodically so sunlight can get -through- the water.