Tank Update...Farewell Giorgio...Comstock Covered Bridge...And Mission Statement, of Sorts...

We may have our first tank fatality.  Yesterday Giorgio, the elusive bottom feeder, was seen laying on the bottom, distressed, out of sorts.  I scooped him up with the net and he barely struggled.  When I let him go he just sunk to the bottom, moved a little bit, then landed on a rock and stayed there for quite a while, just gulping every so often.  Today he hasn't been seen.  I wondered if maybe ammonia had built up and was getting to him, or if he's even eaten anything since October, when he and the other fish were put in the tank. I just figure he's been eating algae, goldfish flakes leftover from the dace, and maybe dace poop, but I don't know.  I figured maybe it's time to change the water, so I panned off about half of it, cleaned the filter, cleaned the algae smear off the back glass of the tank, and then started pouring clean water back in.  I figured Giorgio would either be seen skulking around, or that his dead body would float up from whatever rock it had settled under.  But I didn't see him, so I don't know what the story is yet. The "bug", or the caddisfly larva, also has not been seen in a few days.  Possibly it is metamorphosing, or maybe already has done so.  I have not seen a caddisfly in the house yet, so who knows?

When I was replacing the water the dace all had a great time riding the temporary downspout of water and bubbles that would come pouring into one corner of the tank every so often.  Like I've said before, these fish seem to like to have fun playing in the tank, they know me as their provider and playmate and seemed to appreciate the stimulus of the fresh column of water in a different area of their world.  With the new water they seem more energetic, so I hope it wasn't water quality that distressed Giorgio.  If he's gone, I'll miss him.  He was a cool little fish, and is probably irreplaceable. He was most certainly caught by accident when my son netted the dace.  He was so well camouflaged, that trying to find another to replace him is impossible, and only another fluke by-catch could be hoped for.

We finally got some snow in the Pediddleville area.  Today I drove by the newly refurbished Comstock Covered Bridge and saw the new bridge with a coating of new snow. The river is running very high right now.  There is very little white water, even at the cascades above the swimming hole. The bridge spans Salmon River from Pediddleville to East Pediddleville. Growing up in East Pediddleville, my friends and I used to occasionally end up at the bridge with beers or whatever, and hang out in the pitch darkness of the bridge, listening to the river rushing underneath us.  Partying in a covered bridge is not something that most kids have the chance to do.  Originally built in 1873, it is one of three existing covered bridges in Connecticut.  To me, the updated bridge  looks too modern, too square.  Maybe after the wood siding ages to a dark brown it'll be better.  Of course it was never the same after they installed the security cameras and closed it at sunset years ago before the restoration.  So it'll still be never the same.  Or, it'll still never be the same, or something...

I thought I would go over my intentions for this blog.  This blog I have described as "A Deceptively Innocuous Blog About One Of My Favorite Places On Earth, Among Other Things".  So it is about Salmon River, but the "among other things" will be appearing sooner, hopefully, than later, depending on my various motivations and lacks thereof (I am a champion procrastinator).  It may get weird.  It may get political.  It will chronicle several threads of my life in Pediddleville.  I plan to post things I've written from many years ago and of course, new stuff. Maybe some music reviews.  Maybe a somewhat fictionalized chronicle of my struggle in the workplace.  I am treading a line between yearning to play music and yearning to write and yearning to do quite a number of other things that I simply don't have enough time for.  I work full time for a soul-crushing company that drains my physical and emotional energy, and what time is left is hectic, loud, cacophonous, and fraught with reasons to avoid the things that would make me feel better.  The American Dream...