I have not been around for a while to talk Russians (they are still breeding and hatching all the time!) because I've been busy with work related stuff and my music stuff. I should have some stress relief mid way through May though, as it is looking as though we will close on our house at that...
Concept: Post what you've done since graduating high school or college. Also, this is a good place to talk about your experiences seeing people from high school or college after graduation.
I've recently for some reason been fascinated with the thought of what my former classmates are up to...
That past two weeks my fiancee and I have been moving in to our new house. The basement is mostly finished, and there is a room (more of a nook, because there is no door yet) that measures around 12'x12' that we selected as our tortoise room. I built a new enclosure (pictures pending) that...
I finished college a little over a month ago, and I have been working a lot to stash away money and make sure that I have cash flow for the house that I am buying (moving in around March/April!), but I am starting to think that maybe I am working too much. It's not that I feel like I am working...
Right now, from my 1.3 group, I have 14 eggs in the incubator, and 6 hatchlings that have hatched in the past month or so. Just wanted to give an update on how things are going. Eventually I will probably start offering some of the hatchlings for sale to my fellow tortoise forum members (at a...
It is just before 1am of my last official day as a college student. I have been going to school for over seventeen years (wow, pretty strange saying that), and now that I am at the end of my bachelor's degree, with no immediate plans to pursue a graduate degree, I feel incredible!
My degree...
I was certain I had found the find of a century when I found out someone about an hour away from me has a tortoise enclosure for sale (made of glass and a wrought iron frame), with a sunken nesting box and everything. It looked like it met all of my criteria for my breeding group of russians...
My Russian tortoise breeding group is producing eggs on a regular basis (throughout the year), and I am finally able to hatch them successfully. I hatched about a dozen this past year (and threw out about the same amount, due to my ineptitude), and foresee more in the year to come. I have been...
As you may have noticed, I just picked up a very large used vision enclosure for my Male Red footed tortoise. I will be moving into my own house sometime over the next six months (hopefully sooner rather than later), and that means that I will be able to build a larger enclosure for my russian...
I managed to get my hands on a used Vision enclosure (72"x36"x18") in trade for some russian hatchlings. I set it up for my red foot and have found that, even though the exterior dimensions are not much different than his old enclosure, the interior dimensions are a lot nicer. His old enclosure...
Haven't checked in in a while. I have just been working on consolidating and organizing my tortoise setups. I bought some steel 36"x18"x72" shelves, used one split in half to create two 36" tall pedestals so that my 6'x30"x18" red foot enclosure could 'stack' above my russian enclosure of the...
Just wondering how many of us avid tortoise enthusiasts also enjoy gardening. I made my first vegetable garden last year, got a lot of various types of lettuce, peas, tomatoes, carrots, and cucumbers. This year I rebuilt it into a raised bed using landscaping timbers and increased the yield by a...
It's been a busy summer so I haven't gotten much of a chance to post since spring. Just thought I would update on my breeding group of Russians. They have gotten some outdoor time this summer, but unfortunately many of my days off have been accompanied by rain. I tried changing up the group, so...
The time is approaching that we (me, my fiancee, and all of the critters) will likely be moving into an apartment, and I am trying to figure out a way to give the tortoises plenty of room to roam, breed, and lay their eggs, while still being able to get them into an apartment. I spent a bit of...
I was just about to throw out a couple clutches of eggs because the incubators has been stinky and I assumed they were the culprit. They have been in there for I believe a bit longer than it usually takes for my russian eggs to incubate (usually around 6-8 weeks), and I figured they had gone bad...
I am on the precipice of graduation, with only a week more of undergraduate classes and a couple weeks before I have the degree in my hands. I still have a student teaching semester to finish up, but that is at least going to be something new and different.
Basically, I am getting a degree in...
Since I've started selling off the hatchlings I am getting from my russian group I was trying to decide what to do with the money, and I figured it only makes sense to reinvest it back into the hobby.
My initial thought was to get a nicer incubator, like this one...
I'm going to preface this post with the following statement: This has nothing to do with the politics of owning guns or carrying a concealed weapon. This is about people and their reasons for doing so. I come from a gun family who actually has a vested interest in the firearm industry.
On to...
Anyone still in college?....
Just wondering. I'm finishing my second semester of my senior year to get my bachelor of music degree in music education, and I am sitting here trying to muster the strength to study and/or write a paper, and I know it's not going to happen. I already had three cups...
Times are tough, and though I have hoped that I would be in a good position to buy a house in the near future, it's just not happening, yet I am getting married in just over a year and tensions are starting to run high between me and my parents (since my fiancee and I live with them). It's about...