Some fish with fishing poles and hooks, others with their bare hands...

An undergrad in our lab is going to graduate school, so she invited us to her father's home in the Keys for a barbecue. While we were there, we found a marina where a huge school of tarpon live. For those who don't know tarpon are huge fish (up to 8ft long and 350 lbs) that live in schools. There were several in the marina that were over 6 feet and probably 200-250lbs. They are considered great sport fish because they jump a lot when they are hooked. We found out how exciting jumping fish can be.

Imagine dangling a small fish in front of these hungry eyes.




Then more congregate to look hungrily at the dangling baitfish.

Then wham! One jumps up suddenly after the baitfish.


I must say it was difficult to keep from jumping back instead of letting the Tarpon grab the baitfish from my hand.



The girl's hands in this picture is another graduate student Xin who wanted to feed the tarpon but was completely clueless. She was trying to take a picture of the tarpon, while she was dangling a baitfish. However, a tarpon jumped out of water and grabbed her baitfish before she was even ready. It sure made for a great photo.

In the end only Patricia, Xin, and I fed the Tarpon. None of the other men students would even try it.

Though we do not have much room in our apartment, we do have a balcony that we decided to turn into a jungle. The start of it is 19 orchids, several pots of herbs, 2 palms, several other house-type plants, and a cactus garden.



































These first two are Phaleanopsis orchids. The one on the right I bought for Patricia for Valentine's Day.

















The red flowers above are froma a Cattleya (one of three that we have). The bromeliad is the largest of several that we have.



This next one on the left is my pride and joy, the slipper orchid Phragmipedium caudnatum. I got this orchid 7 years ago, which means that I brought it from AZ to WY and then to FL. The side petals grow quite long and can reach 2 ft. The petals grow down until they touch something. The idea behind these long petals is that they provide little ants and bugs access to the flower. They fall into the slipper portion of the flower and cannot climb out because the sides of the slipper fold down and trap them inside. The only passage out of the slipper is through the back where they pass by the anthers and get covered in pollen then pass by and pollinate the pistil. Basically the smart orchids (most evolved plant family) trick unsuspecting bugs into pollinating them. How can anyone not love orchids?!







The one on the right is another lovely slipper orchid from the genus Paphiopedilum.











This is a Phaeis orchid. It is a rather large, fast-growing orchid with 2 ft long leaves and grows in a large clumps of shoots. Next year it should have about 10 spikes with 25 flowers per spike. I can't wait!







The last is one of 8 Dendrobium orchids that we have.







Last here is our little piece of desert. With all these orchids and other lush green plants. I had to have a little bit of home, too.

More photos

It has been so long since we last wrote on our blog, partly because I am out of habit and partly because there is not much happening other than work. We are finally growing our jungle on our balcony. So far we have 9 orchids, 1 bromeliad, 2 palms, and 2 pothos. Of course this is only the beginning. Patricia is organizing the interior design part of it. In other words, everything must be more than functional but beautiful. Once we have things more organized, I'll put up some pictures of our balcony jungle.

Also here are a few pictures from Disney World and Yuma.