Salamanders!

Since the name of this blog *is* Salamander City, I would be remiss to not post more about salamanders.

Here is our sweet guy, Sandy Salamander. We have had him for about 5 years now, but we have no idea how old he is. We found him in a full grown state, although he has certainly gotten larger since we got him!
The story is, John's friend Dean found Sandy in his swimming pool. Dean scooped him out with the net, but Sandy kept going back in. SO, Dean finally called John and asked him if he wanted this Salamander. Of course he did!

Now we have even more. Here's why:

Earlier this July, we travelled to Crested Butte, and the mountains above it. We found this sweet pond up on a pass, at least 11,000 ft high.

See, there was even still snow around in July!



John, with his naturalist's eye, spotted some eggs, so of course he scooped a few up (John does have a fishing license, which apparently covers amphibian collecting :-p)

We put them into an Odwalla juice bottle:

Here is a close-up of one of the eggs, and the small creature inside:

John felt fairly certain that they were salamanders, and sure enough, upon researching after we got home, the only amphibians found at such a high altitude are either tiger slalmanders, or boreal toads.

After hatching we were certain they were not tadpoles:

3 of the 4 eggs hatched out!

We went out to Ketring Lake and filtered some small creatures out of the water to feed them.

Here they are developing their gill-like structures:

(The stuff floating in there with them is pond scum :-)


They have since grown to be more than 1 inch long, and we have to feed them so often, that we had to get a bigger tank! I think they have a 5 gallon tank now.

They eat daphnia from the pond, and brine shrimp, some of which we grow ourselves and some we get from the pet store.

It's hard to imagine these creatures will turn in to this guy!

For more reading about salamanders in their larval state, check out this website.

Kentucky Day 9, 10, 11

More pictures to come here soon, I lost a bunch off my camera, luckily saved them onto my parents computer before I lost them, Will post later.
Here's the few I got from those days:

Kentucky Days 7 and 8

Day 7 started out by visiting with Grandma Bertie and cousins.

Here are cousins E and J with grandma:

Helping Grandma in her garden:

Me with Baby J:

Played in the creek, found a cool dragonfly

Jacobson Park, rode the paddleboats

Owen especially was completely fascinated by this shifting sand sculpture:

Day 8, time for my cousin Todd, Traci and S to go home. Group picture!

Grandma B, Owen Elise and S:
That afternoon, my friend Lori with kids L and E came out to the lake to play. We swam (of course) and went tubing with my dad's help.

L striking a pose:

Owen and the great balancing act:

E braving the tube:

Elise "Hanging 10"

Owen's bumpy ride:

Elise going "no hands" and having a conversation with herself:

Owen getting wild:

Kentucky Day 5 and 6

Started the day out making paper lanterns for grandma's birthday party tomorrow.

Had to get some games in as well - Twister and Connect 4 two of the favorites.

Second (?) cousin S played too.

Did some more swimming, of course, and some tubing. No pictures of that, sorry!

And here is the cake for grandma's birthday party:

And the festive lanterns:

The birthday girl!

Opening gifts and cards:

And now for the fun part!

Happy Birthday, Grandma.

Kentucky Day 3 and 4 = Tennessee

Third day in Kentucky, we packed up and headed down to Chattanooga Tennessee. We went straight for the Tennessee Aquarium. Lucky for us Aunt Carol gets us passes. First stop - Hyacinth Macaws. (Elise got one of r Christmas from AC, hence the need to pose in front of them. Elise's is named Moon.)

Next stop, the Butterfly room This is always fun - we had many butterflies land on us - and the room was just filled with them!

Next stop - the penguins. Photo Op:

the highlight of our visit, of course, was getting to see the penguins "backstage" and to pet one. The kids say they are very solid, unlike our chickens ;-p

The aquarium has a nice jellyfish exhibit, and I had fun taking pictures.

Also part of the exhibit were glass sculptures made by local artists. I liked this one, of sculptures filled with neon gases:

Always a fun photo op:

Kids lookinglike fish:

Of course one of the best parts was the man-made creek running outside the aquarium!

Next day - we decided to continue our touristy tour of Chattanooga. THanks again to Aunt Carol, we have passes galore. We decided to "See Rock City". (Anyone who has driven through the south near Chattanooga knows what I am talking about!)

IT is very pretty - a nice example of this region's flora, and rock structures.

Statues.

Lots of cute names for the structures and tunnels.

Goblin's Underpass:

And best of all was Fairyland Caverns (we're still in Rock City). I was warned about this part - but it still surprised me.

IT is a cave of sorts, with rooms that you peek into through a "rock window". Inside the rooms are various scenes from famous fairy tales. All of the figurines are painted with reflective paint - in neon colors - with blacklights hung everywhere. Eerie.

Fishing Gnomes.

Hansel und Gretel.

Mary Mary Quite Contrary.

You just have to see it for yourself :-)

Hanging Bridge.

Fat Man's Squeeze.

Eating the requisite Rock Candy outside of Rock City!

Lunch at Mojo Burrito on Lookout Mountain. Yummy!

Next, we saw Ruby Falls. What an experience.

The falls bathed in purple lights:

The kids bathed in purple lights in front of Ruby Falls:

Our family in front of Ruby Falls. The nice person who took our picture insisted on using the flash, because otherwise it would all be red. Uh, yeah, whatever. Great picture of me and the kids, could be anywhere:

We were told it was a half mile hike through caves to get to the falls. What should have been a 15 minute (30 at the most!) Took us more than 1.5 hours. Walk a few steps, stand around and wait. Watch a video (yes, they had video stations set up in the cave), walk a few steps. Stand around and wait while another tour group passes us on their way out (times about 10), walk a few steps. Listen to a recording, continue. Repeat. See the falls, oooh, ahhh. Walk out in about 10 minutes.

Was it fun? Yes, the kids really wanted to see a cave. the falls were pretty. Was it worth it? Yes, but I had free passes, remember? If I had paid full price, I might have been a little disappointed. Glad we did it though!

Back to downtown to have ice cream with AC, play in the fake creek a while, then across the river to ride the carousel and play in fountains a while to wait out rush hour.