Alchemy of Clay

 Above are the 3 guppies (one male, two females)  I always like having baby guppies, but am not putting much effort into raising any (yet).

 And below are the three neon tetras.

 I have a map to put up as a backing, so the wires won't show through the water.  I'm happy to have some new Rogers kids living with me. Hope that I've located the tank far enough from windows (and replaced gravel and plastic parts) so as to avoid the green algae that was a problem last year!

 Look for Mt. Mitchell and just swim up there!

There, the map makes a darker background!

Tomorrow I'll feature the dog and men's heads! Some shots are out of focus...and this is just the first stage of creativity.  Now to dry, then bisque fire, then glaze (oh my what shall I do then?) and glaze fire.  Come back in 3-4 weeks for final product.

When I'm at my desk, I sit next to a sad little aquarium, with a rotating population of fish.  Here last Feb. an orange fish supported the one with black tail and fins, a support fish I called it.  They weren't even the same species, but the black tailed guy wasn't feeling very well.

A boy with a big fish!  Sepia Saturday has given me such a good prompt.  Too bad nobody I know snapped a picture of anyone with a fish they'd caught. (Besides a facebook friend who had caught 2 or 3 nice whoppers in his pond this week...but it's his story, not mine!)



How about M. C. Escher for a few fish?




And then there are commercial fishermen, who go out off the Outer Banks of North Carolina, and truck their fresh catch to Asheville, where my friend, Roger, picks up his haul and sells at several Tailgate Markets all through the spring, summer and fall.  He's selling still at an indoor market locally in Black Mountain during the winter also.  Whenever I can afford fresh fish, I am so happy to buy some.  I once asked how the fishermen catch the swordfish that he sells, as I only know of it as a deep-water fish that is line-caught.  He wasn't sure himself.

 Panther (cat) also likes to look at the aquarium sometimes.  Once she knocked over the tin of their  food and got it to spill on the floor, where she enjoyed the treat of eating fish food.  She keeps waiting for that to happen again!


A friend lives on Hwy 9 south of town (on the Daniel Boone Trail) and has this in his back yard.  I just was trolling through (sorry about that) some old photos, when I found these shots...of a trout farm which is no longer in use.


Whoever built these stairstep pools was into the decorative arts as well as raising trout.



 OK, that's enough for this week!  I'll have another post on next Saturday, for you to also chase the meme and see what the other Sepians have come up with.

Today's quote:

Also known as...
when you need a friend!
And I'm not soliciting any help to support any piscean adventures.  

The last of their kinds...black tail is either a Molly or a Platy.

Goldie is either a Molly or a Platy. I forgot which one was which a long time ago, about when the other 3 of their kinds had disappeared.  Nope, no bodies.  Those guppies are not only cannibals, but well, they eat other fish besides their own kind...usually after they die.

So black tail hasn't been doing so well.  And there was goldie helping her up to the top to get something to eat.  She just encouraged her, and kind of lifted her along the side.

The guppy in the background was watching as well...would this be dinner tomorrow?

Nope, the next day black tail was doing much better.  She made it to the top on her own to eat breakfast.

I have a gazillion guppies, who are all sisters/brothers.  Only one mother seems to give birth, and I did a quarantine of babies for about 6 weeks so some of them might survive the hungry adults.  So now there are many more than anyone would want, and probably way beyond the population density for the 10 gallon tank.

But they are mainly boring little silver minnows, and I didn't get any of the markings of the pretty orange and black and speckled male dads...except a few black spotted tails.  I'd never make a good fish breeder, cause I respect all life, no matter how pretty or ugly!

Update note: Just today I found the black tailed orange fish wedged in a corner under a rock, with those glazed eyes.  So she was ceremonially flushed with wishes for a good life next round. Maybe I should go purchase another orange fish to keep the one survivor company...but with so many guppies, that really doesn't make much sense.  So she's now the lonely little goldfish among the minnows, so to speak.

Today's quote:

No, I'm not talking about life after death.
But how life itself continues...which is pretty miraculous in itself.

For my little existence, I noticed a few things yesterday, which remind me of how life wants to continue itself.


The aquarium.

First, there's the sun at it's lowest in the sky today, and for the shortest amount of sunshine as well.
The photo above shows at the base of the small table, a spot of sunshine hitting that cat's toy.  This is the furthest into my apartment that the sun will hit all year.  Remind you of anything? How about Newgrange, or Stonehenge?  Well, this was closer to noon than dawn, but I like marking (via photos) this point of furthest tilt of the earth, everywhere I live on Winter Solstice.

Then back to life wanting it's own survival.  I put the divider back into the tank (bright turquoise vertical against the sides, clear perforated plastic from front to back). And I put a very pregnant female guppy onto the side in isolation. Yep, in the morning, hiding in lots of plastic weeds, were a bunch of new babies.  I swept momma out with the net, and put her on the other side with the rest of the adults. And then tried watching and counting the babies.

I think it's a bakers dozen.


I have to take the top off the aquarium to even see them, putting the light source to the back of the tank rather than the top.

They may not be cuddly like puppies and kittens, but they are cute in their miniature little way.  Just a tail with eyes, and then those little side flippers going like a hummingbird's wings, propelling them around from here to there, not showing that they know a thing yet.  They didn't even know to eat the first time I fed them.  But they are catching on.

This is the thrill, that new life can still happen, given the circumstances to support it.

I was thinking the other day how I continue the blood of my mothers, the ancestors from whom I am descended. And not just metaphorically.  My mother's blood came to me through the placenta in the womb.  And her mother's came to her before she was born.  We women have a continuous line of life blood, through each daughter to the next. 

I'd heard how girl babies already have all the cells which will become their eggs in their ovaries before they were born.  But I'd never thought of how the blood continues to flow through each of us as well.

More thoughts tomorrow on the miracle of life surviving for itself.

Today's Quote: