Habitat - Outdoor :: The Bale Vale Tale

[apondfortimmy]

It got down into the 50s at night. Maybe 60s...? But whatever, the water out there was too cold for my liking. She had opted to stay outside in the water to sleep for a while (when we brought her inside to her little house she turned right around and went back outside so we let her) but when it got to where the water temperature got lower than 70 I was nervous, and when it was lower than 65 I said no. So we re-created her little inside environment and she hung out with us for a week. It's warmer out now. Sort of. It's 63 out now but she has the sun on her porch area and it feels nice out. The high today should be close to 70, and the rest of the week it's above 70 (and moving into the 90s by next Monday), so I'm not worried. I'll bring her in for one or two more nights.

I never noticed it happening like this before but then again, I've never had to worry about turtles being outside.

[cutepanda86]

Ah I see. Well our up and down weather here would not help my little Sheldon so I understand your concerns.

[apondfortimmy]

Changed plans and started digging finally. Going to sink the 300 gallon rubbermaid tank into the ground and leave it at that for now. The other idea was too overwhelming and it kept stopping me because there was just too much. I'll put this tank in, start the hole for the second tank (the kiddie pool to hold my plants), tie 'em together with a pump to circulate the water through it all, and just make the outside look nice. When I have to move them back inside for the winter, I'll just figure something out. I'm tired of projects being started and not finished.

It's so hot already.
I have to ... to ... something. so hot, so tired.

Oh, I have to dig the hole at least 15 inches so I can put the biofilter and whatnot on flat ground (so I don't have to worry about the kids knocking it over) to allow for the waterfall part, but I'd like it to be even deeper so I could give them more options for basking, but ... I only got seven inches down today in one small part and the rocks are just awful.

I'll go dig more tomorrow morning, really early, when it's not 90+ degrees outside.

[cutepanda86]

Oh my. Well no heat stroke, that is important. I hope you have more luck with the rest.

[apondfortimmy]

It's running about 105-110F this week. It was close to that last week.
Moved the turtles out of the garage. Had mosquito larvae in the tank. My water wasn't moving fast enough apparently.

No more mosquitos. Stock tank is outside with 80% shade, but next to the house and not across the yard like I had planned. The roof shades half the tank now and a tarp shades the rest except where I will be putting the basking area. Tank is half filled but shady and workable for today because I can't be out in the heat moving bricks anymore.

Tomorrow.
Tomorrow basking area.
All turtles accounted for and in good health. Will post picture of Chewy the Beautiful Jerkface later.

Grammar failing. Too hot.

[cutepanda86]

Ucky mosquitoes. Yes that sounds way too hot.

[apondfortimmy]

Uh... Nyrtle just tried to eat a bee. How bad could that have been?

Bees and wasps like my water features but probably would get waterlogged and stuck if they tried to land on the water in the new additions. I get them in my spahnd all the time but they can land and take off again because there's no fountain.

Hmm. I hope they're whatever enough to not land in the moving water.

[apondfortimmy]

Speaking of insects, I just watched one of those huge dragonflies deposit eggs into my spahnd. Then it avoided two hungry birds and went back for a second round of eggs.
Nature is amazing.

[cutepanda86]

Can you net in the pond? I'm thinking a bee sting would be bad for your little turtles.

[apondfortimmy]

Oh, it didn't land... but she tried to snap it out of the air.
Was kind of cute until I realized it was a bee.

[cutepanda86]

Yeah not good for the diet.

[slider_keeper]

Its way too hot here in Vegas, I cant wait to get back to my home in the mountains!

[cutepanda86]

Dry desert heat or hot sticky humidity heat?

[apondfortimmy]

Um, yeah, so ... I've made some improvements to the setup of my turtles outside, got a new thing for Nyrtle, and ... uh... and my husband died.

Here are some pictures of the turtles and stuff.

I set the big pond up next to the house for shade. I built a waterfall.


I learned that if you spread the leaves of a head of red lettuce carefully, you can make it look like a pond plant:


I got some kind of ugly tadpoles for the kids. They were free.


Baby turtle stack!


Grown-up turtle stack!


Ugly tadpoles turn into cute almost-frogs.


And I got chickens and ducks from my sister.


They have their own shade and a misting system set up. My water always looks so green in pictures but it's really not. Yeah, it's kind of dirty but it's not THAT green. The ducks get in it so I have to wash the thing out every day. That's just from what they did to it since last night.

[cutepanda86]

I'm so very sorry to hear about your husband. *hugs*

Nice turtle work.