Last Days

My mom and dad cooked me a birthday dinner at my dad's house while I was in town.

Me and Greg explored a creek, and found a rainbow darter, some minnows, juvenile red-ear and a snapping turtle with a leach on its butt.

This is how we got out there. What a liveable city.

Here's some more info on this very interesting Red-Spotted newt featured below:

Red-spotted Newts have a fairly complicated lifecycle. They begin their life as an aquatic juvenile and then grow into a 3.5-8.6 cm (1 3/8 – 3 3/8 in) terrestrial juvenile called a red eft. Efts are brilliantly colored, generally orange-red, to dull red or orange. After several years, the eft stage migrates back to breeding sites and transforms into aquatic adults. Interestingly, the aquatic adults lack gills, and instead have lungs. The adults are duller than the efts, and are usually olive-green, brown, or dark greenish-brown, with yellow bellies. Their dorsal surface is patterned with 3-7 red spots bordered in black, and they generally grow to lengths of 5.7-12.2 cm (2 ¼ - 4 13/16 in). Adult males have a high tail fin and dark spots on the back legs during the breeding season.

My dad's front yard is pretty bushy. A lot of edible fruiting plants make it a fun place to hang out and graze.