The rain is coming down again today, so my pumpkin-picking trip with friend and baby is postponed until tomorrow. I don't mind too much, having a lazy day in my pajamas feels good. My parents, grandmother and I went for a dinner at my college's culinary-student run restaurant last evening. I was gifted a paid meal for four there and it was absolutely delicious.
It was a really nice way to end my week of mid-terms. Next week is reading week so I have no classes. Time to relax! I have one essay I want to work on but otherwise, I plan to spend my time relaxing, visiting friends and family, and making good food. I'm going to clean out of my animal room and attempt to organize it as best as I can. I still don't have a garden shed so I think I'll just box up my things and bring them over to my grandmother's, since she said I could store things there.
My lovely female Kenyan Sand Boa has finally reached her full adult size. From this point, she may get fatter, but she won't get much longer. She's such an adorable chunky little thing! I love my pretty Halloween, and I'm still glad I named her such, it's so fitting. But she's one of the snake-babies who's tank needs a cleaning so I'd best get on that. Cheers!
I've fallen out of the habit of taking outfit photos - which is a shame because I've been wearing some pretty neat stuff lately - but I think part of it is due to the changing of the seasons. It's almost always windy out, and often cloudy or raining. And while I love Autumn, the smell, the crispness of the air, it doesn't really lend itself to my going out there in short sleeves for photos with my half-broken camera.
Necklace - Made by Me
T-shirt - Thrifted from Value Village
Belt - Ardene's
Skirt - Vintage from Kilo Shop in Paris
Mocassins - Sears
I suppose I can just start taking them indoors again like I did this photo back in early September. Eventually I won't have much choice either way. I'm spending a lot of time in my kitchen now, even more than usual. I'm trying to practice a lot of the recipes from school, which I think I mentioned before, but cooler weather always drives me to my kitchen.
This is some Scallop Seviche, with jalapeños and cherry tomatoes on a chiffonade of lettuce. It was actually really delicious and I'll definitely be making this dish again. I attempted to make a vegetable consommée this past weekend but due to some stupid mistakes I messed it up. I'll be trying again though, because I'm stubborn and it's something I really want to be able to do.
My parents were doing work on their bathroom late last week so my mother brought her ball python Fluffy to my place until they were done. I couldn't resist piling him in with my two boys, Galen and Rorschach. They make such a cute pile o' pythons!
I should probably start getting ready for my baking class this afternoon though. We're making the Choux Pastry Swans that I practiced last weekend. Should be a good class. Cheers!
Tomorrow makes it a week my having lived in my new apartment and it's really starting to feel like home now. I still have some boxes to unpack, but most of it is photos and nicknacks, nothing particularly crucial to my ability to live in my home. I have a lot of organizing ahead of me, but at least I don't live in box-central anymore. My snake babies don't seem to have been at all affected by the move either, and that's relieving.
Top - Gifted from Heather
Skirt - Thrifted from Value Village
Ball Pythons - Mother Nature
Even my toes are multicoloured! I really don't look like what most people probably think a snake
enthusiast should look haha... I stopped worrying what people thought of my appearance a long time ago though, and it'd be hard to go back to blandness.
It's hard to believe I've had these boys for about four years now. They're such sweeties, as are all my snakes. My animal room is all set up for them now, and I just need to unpack my sewing machine and set up my craft station and the room will essentially be finished too. I love that I'm a lady who sews and keeps snakes, who loves shoes and collects animal furs and other odd 'morbid' bits and bobs. A personality made of bright juxtapositions. Speaking of which, I have more boxes of bones to unpack. Cheers!
It seems forever ago that I went to Toronto for the Reptile Expo. Yet not so long ago either, because one of the snakes I brought home still hasn't eaten. Ugh, finicky eaters! And I was totally not expecting to get trouble from the boa, either. Anywho! This will be a critters-only post, so if you don't like reptiles, feel free to skip this one.
To start things off, here I am with Brian Barczyk from BHB Reptiles/SnakeBytes TV. He and his wife, along with their team, work together to breed tens of thousands of snakes every year. Crazy impressive! I felt like I was meeting a celebrity heh. If you're curious about the expo, here's SnakeBytes' video on it. It really gives you a good feel for it.
Yes, your eyes do not deceive you. That snake above is selling for $2200. And that's actually a conservative price in the reptile business when it comes to exotic morphs and rare species. It's not unheard of for breeders to spend in excess of forty thousand dollars on one snake. Although that's usually for extremely new morphs, or new-to-pet-trade species. It's all about cornering the market and having something before everyone else.
This is probably the chillest little lizard ever. If I could reincarnate as something else in another life, I would want to come back as a chill lizard, because just look how chill he is. Speaking of chill lizards... A monitor lizard is having some lazy snuggle time with its owner below. Monitor snuggles! I adore these big lizards (of which the one above is a baby), and hope to someday own a Savannah Monitor in particular, but they get BIG and require a lot of room. Notice her tail hanging down by his ankles? Big lizard!
These little tortoises were absolutely adorable. About palm-sized, they were sitting in this tub on the edge of the table and I was giving them my aw-little-tortoise-goo-goo-eyes when this kid popped out of nowhere and started poking the left tortoise's head. I immediately had him stop and told him, tortoises are delicate, you can't just poke them like that. (Not to mention one tortoise like this is worth about $300, if not more)
Parents, teach your kids not to poke things, you never know when that thing might bite back... or be incredibly expensive and easy to kill. Just sayin'. And while on the subject of kids and tortoises...
As I was taking this photo, the boy asked his dad if they could take the tortoise home. I guess this was probably one of many requests for a creature by this point because the father replied in the most exhausted tone, "We really don't need a giant turtle..." Even though, you know, it's a tortoise.
If anything I mentioned here has you curious, feel free to ask some reptile/tarantula/snake/lizard/expo related questions and I'll answer them in the second Expo post. I hope you're all having a groovy Wednesday. Cheers!
You'll have to forgive me if I'm not chipper. I'm rather upset due to some realizations I've made about the people I love, and over unfortunate circumstances tied in to those people. Let's say my life-long trust and unflagging certainty in someone's ability to Be Right and Make Better have finally been broken down and I'm seeing the real human being beneath the familial label. It's rough when your hero turns out to be just another mistake-making person.
But in more positive news... I had an amazing time in Toronto. My visit to the zoo was great, and the weather was perfect. I have oodles of photos I still need to sort through, some of which you will undoubtedly see here on the blog. The reptile expo was great too, and I got to meet a ball python breeder I'd been hoping to speak to.
I also managed to keep myself reigned in - due to those unfortunate circumstances - and only brought home two baby snakes. I acquired a female Albino Checkered Garter Snake and a female Kenyan Sand Boa.
The above snake is Jewel, the albino garter. As you can see, she's very tiny! And wriggly. Verrry wriggly. But she's a sweet little thing. Having been home less than 48 hours, she's already calmly exploring her surroundings and doesn't seem to show any signs of stress, which is great.
And this is my lovely sand boa, Halloween. She's actually very small, about the length and thickness of a pencil. I took this photo when I first put her in her new terrarium, and I haven't seen her since haha... These snakes are burrowers and spend the majority of their time hidden. But I just love little burrowing snakes, and these are a calm and friendly species.
I have photos from the Labour Day weekend to share with you all still but I don't want to write up a post when I'm in the mood I'm in right now. Until I get my head on straight and sort out these mixed-emotions of mine, my posting will probably be a little sparse. But who knows, I might feel amazing tomorrow (that would be nice). As is, I'm losing sleep agonizing over things I can't change.
I hope you all had a great weekend, and that things are better in your lives than my own. Cheers!
