Attribute to L. Neil Smith’s The Libertarian Enterprise

Been a week since the events in my last article: “Adventures in Herpetology: The Florida Room’s So Bright I Gotta Wear Shades”.

Last Sunday was another Reptile Show in Youngwood.

Even Santa Claus was there.

With a Ball Python.

At least he’s not as in danger of being eaten by something as the Bunny who comes to the show in the spring time!

Lots of spectacular critters like this Buttercup Python and other things.

Lots of dry goods and hardware too! Unfortunately no trilobites. Might have better luck at the show in Cheswick where I know I saw fossil vendors before. Also no luck on feeder mice. People had them but I can probably get a better deal ordering a bulk bag of frozen pinkies online.

Of course not all of the day was fun. When I got home I also had to work on the outside furnace which I had discovered that the blower was kaput a few days before I had my surgery. Had to wait a while until I was well enough to replace with a new one that I luckily kept on hand.

It was actually fairly easy once I got past a major hurdle removing a little hex screw from the lift bar that works the damper flap. That’s worth detailing in a forthcoming edition of the Norseman’s Diaries—if I ever get that story line sorted out.

I got that thing up and running just in time for the arrival of another cold snap. The weather has been all over the place the whole time I’ve been off work.

A few days later it was like this.

For the duration of the week I’ve been mostly tinkering in the Florida Room and sometimes the greenhouse.

That is holding up well despite another heating related issue. There is a problem with either the thermostat or the heater itself which sometimes wasn’t shutting off at the set temperature so I haven’t been running it while I try to figure out the problem. There may be a silver lining in this. I’ve discovered that the greenhouse can survive on passive solar heat much later in the season than expected. That will help conserve fuel and maybe stretch out the time I’ll be able to continue operating it in these uncertain times.

Many of the palms and other larger subtropical plants are remarkably cold tolerant so I’ve been shifting in favor of them and moving the smaller , more delicate ones to the Florida Room.

It’s actually much cheaper to operate than the greenhouse given the advances in LED lighting making it the land of Eternal Summer. Or maybe spring since the lights are usually run for 12 hours daily and the temperature is in the mid to high 70s dropping to 68 at night.

Busy week with several projects ongoing.

One of the turtles—another Rhinoclemmys areolata was AWOL! That prompted a breakdown of the setup and I found it was hiding inside this rock facing and plopped into the water when I pulled it out. This prompted some modifications to move the facing onto the table to open up the pool more and then I filled up the spaces between the facing and the support column with more spray foam so nobody can get in there anymore!

Seems my work tweaking and perfecting this work of art is never done.

For want of some egg crate which the hardware store didn’t have—I figured out I can use the two UG filter plates for false bottoms in the vertical cage builds. They are made for the same size tank and take care of two in this application. It’s now a matter of deciding if I should just cut down the leftover plate from a series of 40B tanks or go out and buy another set for a ten gallon?

Another project tackled Friday night was a major tidying up in the Room and remounting the air pumps back up on the column and rerouting the disheveled tangle of cords and airline tubing better. Eventually this will all go away when I get around to running a central air manifold system around the I beams and ceiling rafters to service all tanks throughout the basement.

Catching some water to fill rain jugs and top off the basement barrel which is my supply of rainwater for misting plants, vivariums and cage setups in the Room. I stumbled upon this idea after the barrel I used to have there burst because I was too slow to get it emptied a few years ago at the onset of freezing weather. The bottom half was salvageable so I cut it off to use as a temporary catch barrel When the two main ones are drained and inverted for the winter. It’s much easier to dump too in a pinch if cold weather is incoming.

And this was my week.