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Natalia's Nuvo 8 Zoa Garden...RETIRED!


natalia_la_loca

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natalia_la_loca

My "diet" consists of eating slowly and avoiding sweetened drinks. Exercise: carrying buckets of water up and down stairs.

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I volunteer to be the leader of the ice cream clique!

 

It's been a sad summer so far here in Ohio. Jeni's Splendid Ice Cream has had a Listeria issue in their manufacturing plant. None of it ever made it into their ice creams, but the plant has been closed for weeks. However, their scoop stores reopen tonight! I'll have to go and see if they have my favorite combo in stock. I get one scoop of each:

 

120311-Jenis-Chagrin-Falls-Flavor-Cards-

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natalia_la_loca

 

It's been a sad summer so far here in Ohio. Jeni's Splendid Ice Cream has had a Listeria issue in their manufacturing plant. None of it ever made it into their ice creams, but the plant has been closed for weeks. However, their scoop stores reopen tonight! I'll have to go and see if they have my favorite combo in stock. I get one scoop of each:

 

 

holy cow, that sounds incredible.

 

I keep hearing about Jeni's. One of my colleagues was raving about it, he says Talenti (my current fave is their salted caramel) pales in comparison. I hope they get their ice cream back in stores soon.

 

Went on a four day business trip last week, came home to this (yay tank sitter!!!)

 

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and this

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and this

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and this (here comes mr. peppermint yelling for his dinner)

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But there always has to be a downside, doesn't there? It appears my oompa loompas are not long for this world. Two or three times since I got them, I've had parts of the colony close up and melt, a couple polyps at a time, all while the rest of the colony quickly puts out new heads. When I got home, all the polyps were closed and starting to shrivel. Really sad about this, the oompas are some of my favorites. And I have no idea why it's happening. Right next to them, the Utter Chaos are gorgeous. Very frustrating.

 

In happier news, our scarecrow is proving highly effective in the vegetable garden. At least when she isn't sleeping on the job, or wandering off. okay, maybe she's not so effective after all.

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Does your scarecrow work on scaring deer? If so I would like to rent her for awhile before I have no garden left!

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natalia_la_loca

Does your scarecrow work on scaring deer? If so I would like to rent her for awhile before I have no garden left!

 

ha, I bet she would :lol: luckily our fence is apparently high enough to keep the deer out.

 

Squirrels are KILLING my tomatos....

 

Squirrels???!! the squirrels must be different deep in the heart of Texas. Ours don't ever touch the tomatoes.

 

Granted, our little scarecrow does terrorize the squirrels too. She chases after the big ones, and once she brought us half a baby squirrel :tears:

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natalia_la_loca

that is so weird to me. We have squirrels everywhere, they are voracious little sh!ts, but they've never shown the tiniest bit of interest in our tomatoes. Maybe it's because our neighbors keep well stocked bird feeders?

 

Now last year some kind of rodent totally ruined our butternut squash harvest. Huge bites and gnaw marks on every single one. I was thinking woodchucks or possums or raccoons, but maybe I should blame the squirrels.

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I thought it was weird when the squirrels were eating tomatoes as well - I had never known they would and I assumed it was something else until I saw the suckers actually holding the tomatoes and chomping down.

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natalia_la_loca

I hope our squirrels don't figure out the wonder of tomatoes. The tomatoes are my favorite part of the garden, we got four heirloom varieties this year. Don't ask me which ones.

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natalia_la_loca

yup...the squirrels are very clever and persistent. Our neighbors have made several attempts to keep them away from the bird feeders...now I'm pretty sure they just stock extra birdseed.

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natalia_la_loca

I know all that stuff about the grass being greener on the other side of the fence, but big blue macaws are a pest I would love to have. (I imagine I'd take that back if I were living down there and trying to grow coconuts, lol)

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yup...the squirrels are very clever and persistent. Our neighbors have made several attempts to keep them away from the bird feeders...now I'm pretty sure they just stock extra birdseed.

For a short time if your bird feeder is on a pole, you can grease the pole with vaseline and that will keep them off. And if you are lucky enough to witness a squirrel's first attempt you can be thoroughly entertained too.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Any updates? I've been near despair over my zoas lately but catching up on your thread has reinspired me to try harder. I'm going to start daily target feeding with reef roids and restart the sanolife stuff fingerscrossed

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natalia_la_loca

Any updates? I've been near despair over my zoas lately but catching up on your thread has reinspired me to try harder. I'm going to start daily target feeding with reef roids and restart the sanolife stuff fingerscrossed

 

Ah, thanks for checking in. So yeaaaah...well, part of it is that I've been busy doing a lot of summer fun stuff. But I've also been procrastinating about posting updates here because

 

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yeah...I messed up big time.

 

I had a small infestation of flatworms in my tank, so a couple of weeks ago I decided to stay on top of it by dosing some Flatworm Exit. No problem, right? I've dosed it several times in my big tank. At best, it's knocked back the population to a manageable number, with no ill effects to corals or inverts. And I found that it's best to hit the infestation with a large dose, so that's what I did. Other than that, I followed the directions, had a big water change ready on hand, etc.

 

But my zoas did not take it well. Instant carnage. Several colonies are gone or on their way out. Several others are chronically closed, are just barely starting to open or have lost tons of color. Only three or four colonies have shown no ill effects (and the peppermint shrimp is fine.) I've done several large water changes, carbon changes, you name it, and it's barely helping.

 

So, basically I'm an idiot. Depressing pix to follow.

 

P.S. I'm sorry about your zoas. They do like that daily target feeding. Try Coral Frenzy too if you have it.

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