Baby Beardie Update

Over the past three days, the final three eggs of the first clutch have hatched. In all, we had 16 hatchlings, 15 of which are healthy. We had one that had some problems getting out of the egg and survived only a couple of days.

Here's a good picture to show scale:

At the other end of the spectrum, here is a picture of my niece holding Moiraine, the full-grown Mama-Dragon:

And the same neice with one of the hatchlings:

Our fifteen survivors are all doing great! They are eating fruit, veggies, and softened dry pellets, as well as improving their cricket hunting skills. They're also displaying some classic bearded dragon social behavior: Stacking!

They also tend to fight over the peak warm spots on the branch. Eventually, they all get comfortable.

Yesterday, we had one working on coming out of his shell all day. (This isn't unusual. We'd see them pipping when we got up in the morning, but they wouldn't come out of their shells until after we'd gone to bed that night.) For this particular dragon, we'll call him/her "Fifteen," I went to the reptile room around midnight and saw this:

You can see the "umbilical cord" in this picture. It's where the nutrition from the egg yolk enters the dragon's stomach to be metabolized. After they're hatched, they have a small wound there for a few days.

This is where he ended up after getting out and running off. (Those are the eggs from the second clutch--we'll have as many as a dozen hatchlings from that clutch in roughly a month.) I think it's kind of cool that in these pictures, he is next to actual bearded dragon eggs so you can see how much he had to be curled up to fit inside.

I pulled Fifteen out of the incubator and put him in the tank with the others. True to form, I got a lot of baby-beardie-attitude. (I'm extremely proud of this picture, by the way. It's probably the best photo I've taken of anything, ever.)

But after several minutes of trying to scare me away (to see how convincing he was, please refer to the first pictures on this post), he realized that the human being wasn't all that harmful, and we shared a moment before he joined the rest of his siblings. I don't know which one he is now.

So that's our dragon news! Thanks for sharing this adventure with us!

Baby Dragons!

So here are our little Christmas dragons! They started hatching on December 22. You can see some of their heads poking out of the shells in these pictures.

They come out and have quite the attitude. This one had been out for about an hour when I started trying to take some photos with my hand in them for scale. This is how he responded:

The pictures are blurry, but they sure do make me laugh! He started chasing my camera around. Luckily, Al was in the room and I made him grab our other camera to get it on film. (The cat was telling me he needed to be fed.)

These are the pictures I got. Again, blurry but funny!

By the way, the little guy sleeping next to him is fine. He's just sleeping on the under-tank heater and soaking in all the warmth.

Eventually, they mellow out and do some cute things. In the next picture, the branch he's perched on is about as big as my pinky finger:

The food plate in the next two pictures is about four inches in diameter:

These little guys are so stinking cute. If they stayed this size, I'd want to keep them! As it is, we're looking for homes for them. In a pet store, $60 per dragon is reasonable--sometimes they're on sale for $50-$55. We're asking $40 for one or $70 for a pair. If anyone out there knows of anyone who's interested, put us in touch! We want these guys to be well cared for, so we're more than willing to answer any questions, offer advice, whatever.

Because I'm a bit of a purist...

So yesterday was the day...Mama Mia out on dvd! I found it interesting that I was pretty much the only one in my group of friends who went into the movie already knowing the words to the songs. I realize that ABBA was finishing up their career while I was busy discovering my hands and feet, but I still managed to find my way to ABBA Gold and then beyond.

I've made it a bit of a quest to introduce my ignorant friends to the real deal, because even though the Mama Mia soundtrack is a lot of fun, it's still just a bunch of covers, and there's a lot of ABBA still out there to be discovered. So enjoy some originals (and one you may not have heard before):

Gimme, Gimme, Gimme

Honey, Honey (with some killer choreography!)

Knowing Me, Knowing You

Our Last Summer

Take a Chance on Me

And if you're still a sucker for covers, you just can't beat Erasure. There's a soft spot in my heart for these guys, since during high school, they were my first introduction to ABBA.

Lay All Your Love On Me

Take a Chance on Me

Fullers Field at Velour!

Thursday night, Jeff's band played at Velour in Provo. Al and Valerie and I drove up to see them play. They didn't win, but they did a great job and we had a very fun night! Enjoy the bootlegged video.

"Let's Get Crazy"

"Current"

"Star Wars Interlude"

"Open Your Eyes"

"More to Come Along"

"Keep Swingin'"

"Take On Me"

An Early Christmas Present for Al

Meet Acheron!

(We're pronouncing it the British way, with the "ch" making a "sh" sound).

He's a pastel ball python. Al is overjoyed. I'm getting used to him, but I think we'll end up good friends.

Not a Good Week for Books

Last Wednesday, the UPS guy delivered a package containing two picture books and a hardcover novel. Trillian and Thursday decided it was a chew toy and demolished the box and everything inside. It was only $26 in reading material, but the picture books were supposed to be for my Creative Writing class today, and the ones I reordered don't get here until tomorrow. They spent some time crated for that stunt.

On Thursday, Val returned three books which I put in my trunk. Al and I went through a car wash and apparently, my trunk leaks. His Turkey Bowl clothes were saturated and the books, although protected somewhat, are still water damaged. Fortunately, I'm not too sad about Breaking Dawn because it was coming apart anyway and I don't really think it's that much of a keepsake. I also need a new copy of Bloodsucking Fiends because mine was already toast before the "car wash incident." The GOOD news was that our camera, which was also in the trunk, wasn't even a little bit damp. That would have REALLY sucked.

Then, on Sunday, I was reading American Shaolin at the table and enjoying a glass of water. I left both on the table when I left for brunch and errands and when I came home, the glass of water had spilled all over the book. I guess Bear was thirsty and knocked the glass over while trying to fit his big fat head into it. Seriously, there's a water dish five feet away. That book spent some time in the oven at 200 degrees since I wanted to read it soon.

So what is the universe trying to tell me?

Probably to keep the dogs inside on Friday, when my $100 collector's edition of Tales of Beedle the Bard is due to arrive from Amazon, and to always finish my water.