The other day we went to the lake, my son (Charlie) wanted to look for new pets to bring home. To backtrack, when he was just a little guy, about four years old, we went to the same lake and he found a freshwater clam (didn't know there was such a thing) and a water snail. Brought these home and put them in his Betta's little tank. The clam was named "Clammy" and the snail was named "Gary" after Spongebob's pet snail. We had these for about two years!?! So this trip, he wanted to find another clam and snail. Couldn't find any snails (there were quite a few ducks around) but his eagle eyes spotted two minuscule clams. He also scooped up some interesting creatures which he informed me were water boatman.

Leave it to him to teach me something new (this happens with more and more frequency). These little things live in the water, come up for air, then take an air bubble back down into the water with them so they can breathe underwater for a while. They have little oar-shaped wings (thus the name, I'm thinking). So now we have four water boatmen and two little clams living in a container on the kitchen counter.

Oh, boy! (Another in a long line of containers on the counter. Charlie usually finds a cricket each winter that we keep in a little house and feed oats and give cottonballs soaked with water.) We didn't put these in the Salem's tank this time; didn't want to introduce micro organisms that would make our little fish sick.

We took a very small sample of the lake water and looked at it under Charlie's EyeClops (a gadget that magnifies objects up to 200 times). Whoa. I would not want to drink that water. It was teeming with microscopic life -- paramecia, bugs, bacteria. Unbelievable.

▼ Comment on this post...