Refleczion

"Arghhhh I'm broked. I'm so broked that I selled my Engrish skills to some exchange stuedant from overseas." - I wish.

No really, my collection is done for this season; with exception to a nice striped jungle male which is a must have. I have his enclosure set up ready for him. All I need is- him. So if you see one lurking around, pass me a message please. :)

Just to note there will be a few more animals flooding in that were purchased pre-this-post just to prove I haven't gone against my words... yet. Let's see how long this lasts before I decide to sell my parents. Aww mummy I love you.

Broad-Banded Sandswimmer Trio

Broad-Banded Sandswimmer Trio
Originally uploaded by Cotton Bunny

I never thought I'd keep any type of skinks, but these lil guys really grabbed my attention. They move so fast, are so colourful, great to watch and readily eats any amount of crickets that you put in front of them. They arrived home on the 22/04/08 (hatched on the 20/02/08). They were so hard to get out of the bag as they really clung onto it and if I was one bit less careful I would have lost all of them to the vastness of the world and I would have never seen them again. They are called sandswimmers because of their habit to "sand-swim". I was told that it would be much more evident when they gain a bit of weight and strength to push themselves under/inside the sand.

N. Levis

Nephrurus Levis #1
Originally uploaded by Cotton Bunny

This little bub is so light and plump. She came home with the N. Amyaes on the 22/04/08. She was hatched on the 30/03/08 so is still a young lil cookie. Her clutch mate is darker and when compared to her differs in patterning quite a bit.

N. Amyae

Nephrurus Amyae #1
Originally uploaded by Cotton Bunny

On the 22/04/08 a couple of Amyaes came home to mama. They are SO cute. One is slightly bigger and lighter than the other one (hatchie mates). The one in the piccie is the smaller of the two. The bigger Amyae eats quite readily whilst the other dwindles around and seems to mostly eat when no one's watching (rounded tummy so she must be eating). They were both hatched on the 24/02/08.

Pasta & Guppy

On Tuesday (15 April) I picked up my two new Jungles from Guppy. We sat on a bench and I took out the snakes to inspect them. I opened up the first bag and there sat my male jungle- a beautiful little guy sitting in the bottom of this dainty little bag. The second bag was much larger than the first, and it held my female jungle. I was really excited to find that she looked even nicer than she did in the piccies. She has a beautiful clean stripe that runs all the way down the whole length of her. I named the male after Guppy, and named the female Pasta, because of her nice creamy colouring. :) 

The Sweet Pickup

A piccie that Guppy took whilst he was at the airport. We are the bestest friends (fine- I only have one friend), and he's my favouritest person so having been coupled on the package is so sweet! As mentioned in the post before, my new bubs were well packaged and they arrived in great condition. Thanks for a great transaction. I'll definitely be buying more snakies from you in the future (and most of all, thanks Guppy for your hard work)!

Striped Jungle ♀ & Hatchy Jungle ♂

Just got a call from Guppy to say he's picked up my two jungles from Brissie airport (Thanks Guppy! ❤). He had a look at them and says they're beautiful and seems to have a loverly temperament. I can't wait to see them. I was lucky to have got my first jungles off a really knowledgeable breeder. The striped female is 2 & 1/2 yrs old and the male is around 14 weeks old (I think).

Peachy♀

Hypo Coastal♀
Originally uploaded by Cotton Bunny

"How did the transaction go."

"Everything went peachy. :)"

Hello to Peachy, my new hypo coastal female. I picked her up from Surfers yesterday night from an absolutely loverly couple (Happy Birthday to Shona today!!). Peachy is a little over one year old (born Feb 07), had her last feed on April 2nd (refused the last two feeds probably due to shedding soon) and her last shed was 2 months ago. Since she is up for her next shed (though her eyes don't look milky yet), I can't wait to see if she might turn out even lighter than she already is. Her pattern and colouring is so beautiful, and I love her gentle eyes. She's quite hard to take a piccie of though, as she moves around quite a lot and attaches herself to everything. I just spent half an hour trying to detach her from a fake tree that I have out on the veranda. Even though she looks quite pretty in it, I don't think I'll be doing that again!

I'm a Murderer

I'm not terribly religious. I obviously love animals but I'm not some hot-headed super involved animal activist. I'm not a vegetarian. I'm not a humanitarian. If I ever told you that I'm one of these, I'd be a phony. However, I'm against killing animals & insects (not including humans) for easily explainable reasons. Insects- because I'm scared of dead ones. Live ones, I love everything but roaches *screams and runs around*, but I cannot stomach anything that's dead. Apart from this totally acceptable reason, I remember an episode where I had found a stick insect that was dying on my veranda. As I have always loved stickies (especially when I was young), I was devastated and looked after it for 2 days straight and had minimal sleep. These days, I barely have enough capacity to do that even for exams. As insect enthusiasts would know, the sticky was bound for death and there would have been little that I could have done. I think I'm slightly veering off the topic here but the story contributes to why I don't like insects...dead. With animals, I'd just really prefer them alive because they're generally cuter that way. I eat chicken, beef, pork and everything that is okay looking + edible, and no I don't feel bad when I eat them. They were bred for the purpose of food and protein is more than a recommended diet for humans. We are pretty high up in the food chain of most places if you haven't noticed. For anti-dog eaters this brings a whole new issue of "animals bred to eat" but we won't go into that because I am against dog eating, and on the basis of logical argument I'd be quickly labeled a hypocrite, which I am... but that's not very nice thank you. So yuh, I'm a pretty nice person. Anyway the event that triggered this post was minute but still worth mentioning. On my way out from purchasing fuzzies, I tried hard not to run over something that was on the road. It was, as you guessed, a piece of cardboard. It was really hard to veer away from its path and I kept wondering if the cardboard was okay. It was all kinda strange. I've always felt this way about, well things. Keeping in mind that I just went to the pet store to buy mice to feed my snakes, yet I am worried about a piece of cardboard. Somehow though it occurs to me that I may feel a bit differently than other people, I've become used to myself. Anyone out there that feels the same, or sees the world from a different perspective? :)

OMG SAVE ME

Microwaveable Country Ladle Chicken & Sweet Corn Soup *Viewer Discretion Advised* which in layman's terms...don't read this post if you have a weak stomach! I am the queen of disgusting food. I live on microwaveable food stuffs, packaged foods and oven ready dinners. I am so full of preservatives that I'm sure I'll still be a very beautiful female involuntarily even when I've been dead for more than a century. I once made up a beautiful dinner consisting of fridge-hard rice, hardly defrosted curry, classic fermented japanese beans with wasabi and soy sauce, with everything mixed in raw egg. I survived it. Felt very sick afterwards, but I survived it. I once ate a whole fridge of expired food, coz I was cooking dinner for friends. The only way to find out what was still okay to eat was... well I think the situation is self explanatory. Anyway, now that I have made a point that I'm not afraid of most foods that would make people sick (mentally and physically), I can now save the world from dying. I heated up a pot of Country Ladle Chicken & Sweet Corn Soup, waited an eager 2 minutes and left it sitting in the microwave for one minute like it said on the packaging, took it out, opened up the lid...took a whiff, wasn't impressed (which is exciting for me as I do tend to like disgusting food), stirred it up real good and took a sip. Yup. Tasted like cat vomit. Second sip. Oh yup, definitely cat vomit. Fermented cat vomit. I had Hungry Jacks for lunch.

I'll be spreading the word don't you worry mama. First step. MSN.

Anonymous says: (8:29:48 PM)
what happened?
Vesper says: (8:31:31 PM)
soup tried to kill me
Vesper says: (8:31:37 PM)
ran after me with a knife
Vesper says: (8:31:45 PM)
stabbed me twice, laughed and ran away
Vesper says: (8:32:00 PM)
that would have been a better scenario than what really happened

Take That, Mojo Jo Jo!

Ooh, can't believe I forgot to mention that I named my three snakes! They aren't called A, B & C anymore. Look at the title and the loverly piccie. If you are a true manly man than you woulda figured it out already (no need to mention women, becoz we know everything about super heroes!). Yes, I know whoever's clever enough to read my blog *wink wink* are definitely real man and there's no need for me to reiterate but just for people who might happen to want to be reminded... say hello to Blossom, Bubbles and Buttercup! Snakie bubbies, even if you all turn out male, I'm sure you'll make every man jealous by being manpower-graded sexy Powerpuff Girls!

*Squeek* (eat me!)

I noticed that my coasties weren't happy without a proper hide so I did check out some at the pet stores that I went today. I came home without any as I was a cheap ass and thought I could concoct something up that would work just as well. They are in tubs now anyway so having a nice looking hideout (which benefits humans way more than the snake) wouldn't really help make their enclosure into an art gallery. Anyway, one of the snakies seemed a tad flighty and extremely insecure when I tried to feed her out of her tub. I boiled it down to her not having a hide or a dark space to drag the mouse into so I looked around for the quickest alternative. I found the perfect hideout. A Panadeine 100 tabs box. I quickly tipped out the blister packs, sniffed it (I do this with everything before I put them into enclosures to make sure there are no strange chemicals. Might not make sense to some people but it comforts me) and put the new hideout into her enclosure and lo and behold, she climbed right in. I left the fuzzy outside of her enclosure and I didn't have to wait long before she dragged it into her new home. I could always get more medicine packaging from work so replacing will be no problems. This way whenever I change the paper towels from their tubs I could change the hideout too which ensures cleanliness. On a side note, for some reason I defrosted 4 fuzzies instead of 3. I believe I was meant to have one more hatchy, like really soon. :)

Pet Shop Spree

It's Sunday, and I'm entitled to do whatever I like (although I say the same thing almost every day, I genuinely mean it every time). So what's a lady to do when she has some free time? I went on a shopping spree. I visited three pet stores, Coomera Pet Barn, Robina Pet Crazy and Nerang Pet Barn. My route may seem a bit strange to people who are familiar with the Coast, but the reason why I ended in the last two stores were by mere chance. I missed the turn off on the way home and so I ended up in Robina. Conscious or not, I had wanted to visit there for a while now anyway. I recently read on APS forum that Coomera Pet Barn had knowledgeable staff and nice reptiles, and since I haven't been there since maybe 8 years ago, I decided it was about time to revisit. They had quite a few adult spotties and their dragons were well looked after (if not a little chubby) and awfully cute. I was so tempted to bring home a vitticep except for the fact that I had vowed to only buy females or coloured males at the least. He was a normal light grey, and a very pretty dragon at that. At the price of $95 for an advanced juvenile, he was more than worth the price, but I was adamant. Yes I am tempted to go back tomorrow and pick him at from the pet store but I won't...I think. No, really, I won't. I think. Anyway, I did what I was supposed to do today and purchased my ten fuzzies for my striped coastie bubs. I had a look at heat cords and decided that I really should get them from the internet due to the price. However, when I reached Pet Crazy I decided that I really needed it today because I'm feeding my bubs and they'll need proper heating, so I paid retail (yay for good mummyhood). Have just fed my three hatchies, cleaned their tubs (one lil snakie poop sure is stinky), and set the tubs up on top of the heat cord. Have to make sure nothing goes wrong with their first feed with me. Will update. :)

Freddo Frog, the Non-Melting, Squishy Kind.

Whilst I eagerly pursue my next reptilian conquest (aka gently shopping online for new herps), I came across the Green Tree Frog. I want one. I miss keeping tadpoles as a child. I used to have this thought in my head that tadpoles are extremely rare and when I actually found some (I could only remember two occasions) I was equally extremely lucky. There's a few taddies for sale around the place at the moment and at $2.00 each taddy, I'm really considering the idea of adopting some froggies. However, I'm worried that when they become all grown up their lovely loud croaks will be way too constant and annoying for other occupants of this, well, whole estate. I guess I could adopt them out after they morph and become froggy gentlemen. That is definitely worth considering. What do you think? :)

Random Ramblings

I'm blogging. I'm at work. I'm blogging at work. Anyone see the association here? I'm herped. Have just sold my first medication today (1 second ago) and found out that I'm not feeling rusty in this industry despite having all those days off. Feeling good...but sleepy.

I'm Just a Material Girl in a Material World

I promised myself that I would get a couple of bearded dragons and that would be it. Then I decided I was allowed one snake. ONE snake. So I got three. I was never really into geckos except for thinking barking geckos were cute. Needless to say, on the 28th March I paid for 5 geckos, a trio of southern leaf tailed geckos (Phylluris Platurus) and a pair of barkers (Underwoodisaurus Milli). I still want some bearded dragons and I probably wouldn't cease looking for a pair until I found one, but now I also want a pair of nice adult snakes. I'm internally screaming. Mostly from pleasure and excitement for no reason, some from pure sleepiness and disapproval as I have to work early tomorrow morning, and the rest is a shrill but falsely manageable scream for my bleeding wallet. Roses are red, violets are blue. Herps are pretty, and so are you. Can I please have a discount? :)

Totally Fate

Light Striped Coastal Python Hatchies
Originally uploaded by Cotton Bunny

So it was really hard picking out the bubs yesterday night. Before I forget why I chose them (whom by the way are currently named A, B & C), two were picked because they both crapped on my skirt (to the morbid horror of the seller and the utter amusement of me <-- Yes, I fell in love with them straight after they did that). I had a really hard time picking the third one out of two snakies. One of the two had hazy eyes as she was about to shed. Although I was extremely excited about the prospects of her next shed, I had to quickly make the decision that she had a micrometre more of a break on her stripe than the one I picked because I was literally eaten alive by mozzies (no, I'm not exaggerating at all). I am currently feeling big time the effects of the mozzie bites and boy, am I not pleased.

Aww My First Love Bite

Aww My First Love Bite
Originally uploaded by Cotton Bunny

I got my first snakie love bite yesterday. Sorta felt like two quick pin pricks. I do sew a lot so the nice lil pin touch felt close to home. It was a really exciting experience for me as I can now lamely be included in the group of hardcore snake keepers. Now when they talk about snake bites I can kinda brush my hair back and join in. Possibly something that goes like this - "Yuh, I know what ye all are saying y'know. The other night I got struck on my hand...took me by surprise. I'm really glad I pulled through without any real complications. [insert: head shaking here] Just one of those snake keeping things y'know. You put up with it and have a laugh. " I don't know why I would have to have an accent, but I do and admittedly it does make me sound cooler.

Light Striped Coastal Python Hatchies

Light Striped Coastal Python Hatchies
Originally uploaded by Cotton Bunny

Happy April Fools Day everybody! :)

Today was pretty eventless for me except for the fact that >> I got three new coastal hatchies!! They are seriously beautiful. When I was picking them out from the lot of coasties the breeder had it was just so hard as they all looked amazing. He had two hold backs that I would have loved to get my grubby hands on. They were really light and quite red (fully striped as well). Mine has more of a brown/greenish tinge rather than the reddish colouration but as coasties change colour drastically as they grow older, I guess I'll find out in a year's time. I got striped coastals!!! *jumps up and down* :)