Well, that was fun

So, we had another wind storm rip through the midwest last night. When the first blast of wind rain and hail hit, the car shelter stopped being a shelter and became a windsock:


The wind came up the driveway and blew it end over end until it got hung up on the corner of our house and the cable line. We happened to be out side because we wanted to see the cool wind...but weren't expecting to see this thing do a cartwheel before our eyes.

We ran over and tried to pull it off the house, where the wind had pinned it. We couldn't budge it. Then, the wind shifted and we fell forward, Keystone Cops style. Shaunn would up underneath the thing in the middle of the driveway. I wasn't sure where he's gone. I helped him climb out from under there.
This whole time it was still raining like a monsoon. I had Shaunn move the car down the drive(yes, it was underneath the shelter at the time) and I took a knife from the kitchen and I started slicing the cover away from the frame, trying to get most of it off before it decided to fly again. Luckily the wind wasn't very strong at this point, but it was still pouring. I cut most of the cover off, tucked the rest under the metal frame, and put a couple bags of topsoil on top of it (nature's all purpose paperweight). This was good enough to keep it from moving until I could get at it today.
Luckily, other than the loss of the shelter, damage was pretty minor. One of the gutters was dented pretty well when the shelter apparently slammed into it, and the car has a couple scratches but that's about it.

Bully

I recently added new fish to my aquarium. But one of the long-time residents is not taking well to the new neighbors:



He's a rubber-lipped Plecostomus. Generally, these are docile fish. I chose him for that and for the fact that they remain fairly small - I didn't want a foot long fish taking up half the tank.
I've owned him since July 2005, and he's great as fish go. But he's been growing more aggressive and territorial in the past year. And with the new fish, he's really not happy. When he's upset, his coloration changes - he's normally a slate gray color, but when he's out throwing his weight around, his color will become more pinkish around his face. The problem is he's taking out his frustration on the other tank residents...he's been attacking the other 2 algae eaters, which haven't suffered any physical damage, but the stress isn't good for them.
Naturally, once I started looking up aggressive tendencies in this species, I found that they sometimes become territorial. Evidently I've got one of those.
I'm not sure what to do, if it keeps up I may have to set up a separate tank for him and let him live out his grumpy life in solitude, if that's what he really wants. It's a shame, because he's a beautiful fish.

The other fish I got? Well...I'd love to show you their photos, but getting fish to sit still for the camera isn't very easy. So here's some stock photos:


I bought 5 Red-Eye Tetras...really striking in the aquarium. Their tails have a splash of gold color that contrasts with the black band at the tail - ...these are schooling fish, so they have formed their own little clique.

I also bought one red tailed shark...it's more closely related to Carp than traditional sharks, but gets the name from the appearance. This is a little one, only about an inch long right now. But it shouldn't get to be more than 3 inches when fully grown. Beautiful little fish.