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Thursday, June 24, 2010

The Sweet Joy of a Sleeping Baby


Such peace, such tenderness, such beauty all reside in the face of a sleeping baby.

Friday, June 11, 2010

Our New Crab Community (The Spidey update)


Well, I am happy to report that our pet hermit crab Spidey is still alive!
Since the unfortunate "we thought you were dead" incident, we have upgraded Spidey's habitat considerably with a bigger tank and more climbing sticks and a nightly buffet that would put many restaurants to shame. We also thought it was time to get Spidey a friend.
At the pet store Ristow picked out a pretty, shiny "girl" hermit crab with a shell painted like a pineapple. (though almost impossible to tell if a hermit crab is a boy or girl) He was so excited and her name was, yes you guessed it, pineapple.
Well, within 30 minutes of her introduction to Spidey's tank, Pineapple had all claws and legs bared and was attacking Spidey trying to take over his shell. It was awful! I felt so bad for Spidey. I gave her a few chances and finally had to take her out of the tank before she hurt him. Then I read that a hermit crab would rather be pulled apart limb by limb than let go of its shell. yikes! and if you remember from the "sorry, we thought you were dead" post, Spidey's big claw was accidentally lost in the chaos, so now he is unable to defend himself from crazy shell stealing crabs.
After begging the store to let us return Pineapple they said ok and asked us to bring Spidey in too so that they could better match up a suitable tank mate. We searched through the whole tank and found two crabs with very small claws that the clerk thought would work and of course now we had to buy two more crabs instead of one because the pressure would be taken off of Spidey with three in the tank. Boy, am I a sucker or what?
So now our new crabitat consists of Spidey, America (who is painted like a flag) and Racer (black with a yellow and orange stripe down its back). While they are not the best of friends yet, the two new crabs have not attacked Spidey, only been a bit intimidating, which is a territorial issue. Spidey is bit traumatized still but I think with some therapy he will pull through. It's just character building right?
I will try to get a picture tonight of them all out a about.