An overdue update, one you all deserve

oh hello, dear patient readers. i am incredibly sorry for being quite possibly the very worst blogger on the planet. i can't really even call my self a blogger anymore, to be completely honest, but the label i am known by matters not, for i am back! well, at least for this post. i cannot make any more promises, because i know i will break them if i do, but i will *attempt* to be better with regularly posting updates on the animals here. ah yes, the animals! so many incredible changes have been going on, some sad and some wonderful. first off, i no longer have ducks or chickens. this was a hard decision to make, but i rehomed my flock of ducks and chickens to some of our friends who run a local farm. since i went vegan just over ten months ago, i kind of forgot about collecting eggs because, well, i no longer ate them. the ducks and chickens were pets that weren't being treated like pets, and weren't getting enough attention, so we gave them to our friends who have a creek and tons of roaming land to live happily on. while i do miss them, i know that this is a much better situation for them to be in, plus i get to see them whenever i want to :) probably the least interesting but most functionally helpful thing that has happened is that i have turned my room into a pet room. i moved my bed into my closet, which means i can have extra space in my room for my critters as well as a nicer place to hang out! my room currently houses my quail, my dove, my two pet roaches (they live in a terrarium), my three rats, my saltwater tank, and my most long awaited pet ever, whom i am very much in love with. she, however, does not reciprocate the feeling, probably due to the fact that she cannot. yes, i (finally!) have a snake, after years and years of asking and waiting, and i can wholeheartedly tell you that she was worth the wait and money. sangria is my absolutely stunning blood python. with her striking pattern and rich colours, it's hard to believe she has the wild blood python markings with no altered genetics. just a warning, some of the pictures of her include her eating a dead rat (it was dead before i gave it to her), but she is fairly elusive, so feeding time tends to be my main chance to snap pictures. 

as lovely as sangria is, she is not currently handleable without gloves. she is still getting used to the idea that i am not going to hurt her, and is a bit nippy, so i only handle her with protection for now. she is such a lovely creature, though, which makes all the difficult times with her worth it. alright, i'm sure you have had enough of sangria for now, so onto the next animal i want to talk about! 

aphrodite (dido for short), my dove, turned out to be a boy! but i still call him she and i am not changing his name. dido and athena (my quail) get along quite well, and preen and talk to eachother all the time, so that makes me very happy. i am hoping to build a much wider cage at somepoint, and have a small daytime aviary for them, too, but for now i just make sure they get plenty of time to run/fly around my bathroom. i have been attempting to flight train dido so that she'll come back to me when she flies up in our rafters and so i don't have to get her down with an extra long duster, but our progress has been slow. she would much rather sit atop the rafter and preen than come back down. anyways, we did a photoshoot with her this winter, so here are some pictures from that:

alright, alright, alright! next animal :) or should i say, animals? next critters are the rattos! my rats are all elderly now, so i'm doing a lot of extra pampering to make sure they are comfortable. onyx has been having trouble keeping weight on even though she's eating a ton, partially due to the fact that she has a massive tumor that i cannot do anything about (she's too old for surgery :/), and just partially due to age, so i have been mixing up cheerios, coconut milk, and protein powder for her every morning to make sure she is as healthy as she can be. matcha is still super cuddly, and while she also has a tumor (all the rats sadly have tumors), hers does not hinder her quite as much and she seems to be in much better spirits than onyx. fefe is doing best of all, still the energetic hooligan i met at the rescue center a year and a half ago. i am trying to be very intentional on spending tons of quality time with my pets now, so the rats have been getting way more cuddle and play time. i need to make them some more hammocks, but other than that, they are about as spoiled as rats can be. i don't really have many pictures of them, but here is a picture that has their cage (as well as my saltwater tank and snake enclosure!) in it.

 

well, speaking of my saltwater tank, how is it doing? to be completely honest, it could be going much better. my tank ended up dying out when my filter failed and killed all my starfish, hermit crabs, and gorgeous snails, but i now have some new hermit crabs that are doing quite well. my plans are to let the algae continue to grow for a WHILE, get some more snails, and then get an anemone, 3 types of coral, and a clownfish pair. here are some of the lovely critters i used to have:

alright, alright, last, but certainly not least, are my cockroaches. i only have two now (carob passed away :( ), but i still really love them. a lot of people still think they are revolting, but i definitely have to disagree. they are very clean animals and spend a lot of time cleaning themselves up. they are quite entertaining and friendly, and are fun to just chill our with. they are fairly self explanatory, though, so here are some pictures. 

alright! i made it through my animals in my room ( i have some fish outside of my room that i will introduce later) a few simple and quick updates on me because this post is waaaay too long:

1. i have a band now (kinda? idk. i'm in a band)

2. i got to go surfing a lot more this summer, and hope to go more 

3. my vegan diet is really helping me feel way better, and has helped me to think better

4. i am now a skateboarder! i have been longboarding and trickboarding for a few months now :)

5. i have a lot of jobs, 3 to be exact, and they have been rewarding yet challenging at times

6. i'm doing a bunch more stuff with music right now, so keep an eye out for a song that may or may not be coming out soon ;) 

alright, that's it! all done :) if you made it this far, congratulations! you are an excellent reader :P