Wednesday’s Things.......

We still have ice and I could not  walk out onto the deck. So this is a shot taken by leaning out of the patio door, shooting blind. The weather today was mostly sunny but there is still coating of ice on trees and cars parked in the shade. Our deck doesn’t get sun during the winter so ice still coats all the chairs and tables and deck railing.

Putting a cast iron skillet with seed did bring some birds as the regular feeders are iced over and I can’t walk out to them to fix things.

Junco birds seem to be the only birds at my feeder the past two days. So I did get a lot of photos of them.

They look like they are wearing a hood or over coat with the way the dark gray is positioned on their bodies. Their wings have great streaks of white on them and the tail feathers sometime spread just a little showing a white streak of feathers in the middle of the dark tail feather.

Barney did not hurt himself on the iced sidewalk yesterday. He really dislikes walking on the frozen stiff grass.  Fortunately this morning the grass was less frozen so he could walk around a lot better,

I removed half of the water yesterday from the tank and scraped the inside glass with razor blades. I have a chemical to put in the water when that much water is changed so it doesn’t shock and kill the fish.  I did also try to keep the water temperatures similar as I refilled the tank.  This morning the tank was clear.  A normal water change for fish is to take one tenth of the amount each week and replace. After a few weeks the law of averages tells us that the tank is completely converted to all new water. Goldfish tolerate the nitrate build up easily but they really are better if they get some water changes once in a while. The build up of nitrate in the tank usually kills tropical fish quickly

Closing down today with all the info that you many not want.  I appreciate your stopping by today.