As you probably know by now, the Ipswich River water level is at an historic low. The poor turtles were getting trapped in the fish ladder, but the otters have been displaying some amazing ingenuity. Back before the drought they used the fish ladder to get from the tidal water below the dam to the fresh water above the dam. Now we’re seeing them use the storm drain system and also scaling the dam using a pile of rocks for leverage.
Today is my 3rd Blogiversary. On August 26, 2013, I published my first post on ninedarkmoons.com and started a 3 year odyssey of DIY, creativity, photography, and self expression. I’ve also learned way more about website design than I ever thought possible! Over the past 3 years I’ve published 316 posts & over 4,500 photos. I am very proud of what I’ve accomplished.
Due to the current drought in the Northeast, the Ipswich River water levels have been getting lower and lower. The waterfall stopped altogether over a month ago, making our house oddly silent. The fish ladder, which is directly behind our house, runs perpendicular to the dam. Because of the falling water levels, turtles started getting trapped in the fish ladder at the end of July. I rescued 5 and other people rescued a whole bunch more.
On August 4th I decided to retest my page’s speed. I hadn’t tested it since last July. It was a bit of a wake up call! I scored a big, fat F for speed. Yikes! Since then I’ve learned so much about site optimization and page speed. I’ve downloaded a new, more current theme, have “smushed” all 4,500+ of my images, and learned how to cache my files and pages. WHEW!
I started riding 30 miles a week on the recumbent bike at the local YMCA last month, so I decided to sign up for a virtual mission at myvirtualmission.com. I didn’t really have a specific destination on the west coast, so I randomly chose the Seattle Aquarium. And the awesomest part about that is I keep having nightmares about the Seattle Aquarium [think giant tentacles slamming into glass]. GAH!
We don’t see the Great Blue Heron very often, like hardly ever. But last Friday morning Jim saw him in the river hunting fish. On Monday morning we saw him so I grabbed my new zoom lens and sat in living room window and watched him for about an hour as he stalked, caught, rinsed, and ate a fish. And shook himself dry like a dog.
My best friend Abbie has 2 adorable twin girls, who are 3 years old. Super cute. They keep her very busy and she’s an awesome mom. She’s been working on painting a flower border and an apple tree on their bedroom wall. She asked if I’d like to help out, so I went over Sunday and painted a cherry blossom branch! I will be going back to turn it into a full tree.
