Feather Fur and Fin

Have I mentioned recently how much I love cbc radio? Today I heard this absolutely lovely song by Danny Michel about nature, and I enjoyed it so much I had to look it up when I got home. Here are the lyrics. Do you ever feel like this is how the earth will end up if we don't change?

I went to the country
to escape the noise and lights
I laid there in the pine cones all night
I woke in the morning
and all the trees were gone
I got this sinking feeling
everything felt wrong

There were strip malls and dollar stores
and diesel in the air
So I slept in a row boat
and I anchored far from shore
Now I don't hear them chainsaws no more

I woke in the morning
when someone pulled the plug
I was stranded in the lake bottom sludge
With all the tires, paint cans and things

Well,

Every little critter
with feather, fur & fin
cried to Mother Nature
to come back for them
for every piece of litter
for every little sin
She cried for all of them
feather, fur & fin
She cried for all of them
feather, fur & fin

So I went to an island
down the Caribbean way
And I laid there in the sand all day
I turned on a radio
and I heard the DJ say:
Well, batten down the hatches
down Santa Elena way
I swam the ocean reef,
with coral all was gray

Every little critter
with feather, fur & fin
cried to Mother Nature
to come back for them
for every piece of litter
for every little sin
She cried for all of them
feather, fur & fin
She cried for all of them
feather, fur & fin

She saw the eagle's eye
weeping in the willow
She prayed to the mantis
and she cried into her pillow
for the salmon in the Fraser
and the salamander's kin

She cried for all of them
feather, fur & fin
She cried for all of them
feather, fur & fin

Well, I went to the city
when all the trees were gone
and I laid there on a asphalt lawn
And she cried out a thousand days
of hurricanes and floods
Her face ran with tears
and the streets ran with blood
Fur coats and sushi boats
and diesel in the air

Every little critter
with feather, fur & fin
cried to Mother Nature
to come back for them
for every piece of litter
for every little sin
She cried for all of them
feather, fur & fin
She cried for all of them
feather, fur & fin

Feather, fur & fin
she cried for all of them
for feather, fur & fin,
she cried for every fin

It's very very new, so If you want to listen to it, this is the only version I can find on the web so far. Go about halfway through the video before he starts singing.

Samwise the Bloated

So you've already heard about Samwise the Bloated and the whole "peas help bloatation" thing here and here.

Well, a few weeks ago, I captured Samwise in action. It seems he's found a solution (involving the water filter) to be able to get to the bottom of his tank despite his bloatation.

Observe, and enjoy:

As promised

An update (with some pics!) on Samwise the bloated and the rest of the LOTR fish gang.
From my sister's email today: his bloatation is doing much better today after a strict diet of only peas.
I have to say, after looking at the three little fellas, Samwise it the cutest :D
(my apologies for the blurriness of Sam's pictures; because of his bloat, he's floatin' around and doesn't stay still long enough for the pic to come out clearly)

Frodo

Frodo and Gollum

Samwise the Bloated

The three stooges

Random Acts of Fishy-ness

So I haven't written in about a week, right? and I said I wouldn't do that again, right? Well... sorry? It's just that most of what's going on in my life right now is not blog-writin' material - not that it's bad, no! it's plenty good, it's just that my life right now pretty much involves a lot of wedding planning, and I'm greatly enjoying it, but it's not the kind of stuff I want to post...
From my sister in Montreal though, comes this rather hilarious situation:
A few weeks ago, my sister's sister-in-law (I never know if I'm supposed to call her my sister-in-law, or how exactly to describe our relationship) got my sister and brother-in-law some goldfish as a gift. My sis and brother-in-law (bil for short) named them Frodo, Sam, and Gollum (If you haven't seen Lord of the Rings, this reference is completely lost on you. If you have, each fish sort of resembles his namesake: Frodo is small, Gollum is a bit on the freaky side with massive eyes on the side of his head, and Sam is pear-shaped and large).
So it's all good in the fish world. after all, what are you gonna do with gold fish? Put them in their tank, feed them, and look at them, right? Well, last week, while my sister is away, Sam develops some "bloating" and starts floating to the top of the tank after dinner... My bil calls my sis and tells her he's floating, so she assumes he's dead, and my bil says: no, he's swimming, just on his back or side, but then he just 'rests' or floats every so often...
so my sis suggests calling the pet store, which my bil does, and they tell him the problem is bloating... Guess what you do for a gold fish with bloating? You feed it defrosted crushed frozen peas. Isn't that silly? So now, every night after dinner, Sam needs to eat peas. and then he floats and bloats (my sister says he's so bloated she's even made up a special word for this: "bloatation") and by morning he's fine again... My sister's actually convinced he just eats too much: one time, my bil had to hold him back with the net to let the other fish get a chance to eat when he put the food in...
Anyway, I promise that eventually there will be pics of these little guys, who've turned out to be more work than first suspected, but for now my sis says that the pic would just convince any of you that they're keeping a dead fish in the tank. I think maybe Sam just likes to back float, which is an unfortunate position to like for a fish because it's so synonymous with death for them?