Heartbeat Weekly (66): I got a snake!

Posted by Jessi (Geo) on July 26, 2015 | 7 Comments


hbweekly

 

Two week book haul

book haul July

Bought:

Library:

From the publisher:

Thank you Tor!!

Weekly Recap

Posts on the blog (2 weeks):

Blog news:

Okay, so wow I have fallen WAY behind now! I know I’ve been missing more often than not for months, and for that I apologize. I thought life would calm down, but it’s only gotten crazier! Lately it’s been like that because of my work schedule, though. We’re in the process of switching hands, so until we get the new person (who happens to be a good friend of mine, yay!) trained, I will be on a weird schedule. I’m back on nights for now, so I’ve been working 5-6 days a week (instead of my usual 3 double shifts). I definitely miss my days off! I don’t get anything done in the mornings before work, so I haven’t had much spare time. And when I do, I feel like I always have plans! I haven’t had hardly any down time the past few weeks.

It’s also hard to blog without internet. I can use the hotspot on my phone for the most part, but it burns through it really fast. I hit 8 out of my 10 gb limit in just a couple of weeks =/ It really sucks. I miss having unlimited internet SO freaking bad, but oh well. Such is life. I have to plan my blogging days when I can take a long trip to the library!

I also totally failed at the Reading Through Summer readathon. I wanted to read 3 books and I only read one. Oops! That’s okay, though, because I beasted the previous readathon ;) Speaking of readathons, Beat the Heat is coming up soon so stay tuned!

What I’ve been up to the past couple of weeks:

Um, everything? Lol. I’ve been hanging out with friends more now and trying to build my social life back up (it’s not going very well, ha). I also turned 27 last weekend! I had a party the night before, in which only 4 people showed up, but we had fun! I drank too much, so did my friend (for the first time ever…I’m a bad influence apparently!), and then several of us got into an icing fight at 4:30 am. It was so fun, but the cleanup sucked lmao!

I’ve been doing some work on the house lately – I finished the guest bathroom:

purple bathroom

I loooove it so much! I’m totally proud of myself, haha. I also started painting the half bath, but all I have so far is two coats of primer. I still haven’t decided what color to paint it! I finally hung up a bunch of pictures and stuff that had been sitting in a box for the past year – my high school achievements, my senior class composite, all my band competition things. I moved my beach themed deco from my parents house and got that up in my master bathroom. I moved my three fish tanks in – a 10 gal, 20 gal, and 55 gal. I was quite thrilled that the filters for the 55 still work! I got that one up and running, but I have to buy a new light for it before I put fish in (which is going to be INSANELY expensive).

Also, I got a snake!! I’ve always been fascinated with snakes and have been wanting one for years, but was never allowed to have one under my parents’ roof (my mom said “not only no, but HELL no” lol).

Meet Saphira!

saphira ball python small saphira ball python saphira and books

She’s a juvenile Ball Python! (She’s named after the dragon in Eragon, btw!) I asked how old she was, but didn’t get a clear answer. Somewhere around a couple of months? She’s still very small – she’s just a little longer than my forearm now (so maybe a foot and a half, if that?). Adult female Balls can get up to 5 feet in length! They’re great snakes for beginners because they’re very docile, which is definitely what I wanted. Balls don’t really bite unless it’s a feeding error (you’re hands are in the way and they mistake you for food).

I’m super excited to have her as a new family member! I actually have been looking at her for weeks now, but because Ball Pythons have a 30-year life span, I wanted to do some thorough research before committing. I wanted to know for sure what I was getting into!

I had some trial and error the first couple of days. First of all, I bought an infrared bulb for the heat lamp because Balls don’t necessarily need artificial light (as long as they have a little bit of UV source from a window close by), and too much bright light stresses them out. Unfortunately, the bulb I bought didn’t produce enough heat. The daytime basking side should be in the high 80’s and it was only reaching the high 70’s to low 80’s, which is more of the nighttime temp, so I had to buy a second lamp for the daytime. I also ended up having to switch my substrate to cypress mulch. I was using newspaper, which is a cheap (and safe) substrate, but the habitat wasn’t holding humidity (which cypress will help with). She also kept crawling under the darn newspaper to hide, instead of using the hide house I bought for her.

The only thing I’m worried about now is that she won’t eat. The staff at the Petsmart I got her from were having to force feed her frozen pinkies because she was resisting the frozen food =/ I’m hoping she gets used to it. I’m not opposed to feeding live at all, but I worry that when she gets bigger, and thus the prey gets bigger, it will pose a threat to her. I read that the #1 killer in captive-born Balls is infection from rodent bites. So frozen it is!

Do any of you guys have snakes, or reptiles? I’d love to hear about them!

What’s in your mailbox, loverlies? Link me up!

Jessi (Geo)

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7 responses to “Heartbeat Weekly (66): I got a snake!

  1. brrrr snakes ! She is beautiful but I’m so scared of snakes !

    I hope you’ll get an unlimited internet soon ! I love what you did with your guest bathroom :)

    (everytime I read one of your posts, I remember that my layout is unfinished, I need a banner (a friend said she would make me one… 3 months ago), a logo, and other cute things -_-

  2. Happy Belated Birthday!! That’s awesome and from the sounds of things you’re insanely busy! I’d probably be tearing my hair out if I were you! I admire your tenacity!!

    And snakes…eep! Yeah, sorry, they scare the crap out of me! LOL! I was the kid who when we went on field trips to the zoo, begged to stand outside the reptile house, but alas, I was forced to go in. Which I totally get, can’t leave a kid outside on her own. But there was that stupid worksheet we had to fill in and naturally out of the 5 reptile questions, 3 were related to the huge snakes! *shivers*

    Also my 4th grade teacher was the animal guy, and by animals I mean reptiles. There were tiny water snakes that were ALWAYS getting loose from their tank. And then he FOUND a rat snake in a nearby park and decided to make it a class pet. It at live mice and I hated seeing the poor mouse in the cage while the snake waited until later to eat it! One day, when I came into class before school started I saw the cage empty and was excited! I asked if he got rid of the snake? He told me, “oh no, it got loose somewhere.”

    Seriously thought he was kidding, but nope. There was a snake loose in the school!! I very much wanted to go home that week. But again, no go. I even remember he gave us a “fun writing assignment” to have us describe what we thought “Ronnie” was doing in the school. Wondering if he purposely let it loose for such assignment now…

    So yeah, long winded commenting going on there! LOL!

    Love what you did with the guest bathroom! Hope things quiet down at work so you can have a more restful, regular routine filled with time for reading! Enjoy the new reads! (and pet! ;) )

    Here’s my STS

    Have a GREAT day!

    Old Follower :)

  3. Awe, so cute! I used to have a Ball Python which a good friend bought off me. I had her (or him) for 4 years. She started off about your snake’s size and grew to be over 6 feet. I called it Moe, since I couldn’t tell the sex. Don’t stress your snake’s eating. My snake didn’t eat for a whole year when I got it. I tried to feed Moe several times a month, but Moe would just kill them and go back to sleep. At the one year anniversary, Moe finally ate. Then I fed him about every 3 weeks. Watching Moe eat was really cool (that sounds weird but the cycle of life is so cool to me). I got him a heat rock, which I wrapped in a towel and a heat lamp. Moe grew whenever I got a bigger tank. I eventually I had Moe in a 50 gallon aquarium, and I think the guy that bought him got him an even bigger habitat.
    I hope you get internet soon. I can’t imagine trying to blog without it. I hope you will post more pics of Saphira, she is so cool.

    • Oh, one more thing. My Moe used to get ticks in her scales. I didn’t even realize it until the neighbor pointed out that she one in her eye, (it was there when i took her home from the pet shop!). They are really common in snakes and can be easily removed with tweezers. I hated it because if they grew too big they would mess her scales up. Check your snake often for them.

  4. I was just wondering the other day about Beat the Heat. I’ll be getting ready! After the cobra incident in Austin, not to mention my life-threatening tango with a baby copperhead at age 2, I’m good on snakes for life. Saphira sounds just like a cat – buy it toys and it wants to play in the box. I will watch from this great distance behind my screen. :) I really, really want a turtle but I’m worried that Baby might not understand that it’s friend, not food. Bathroom looks fantastic! I hope your schedule gets straight soon!

  5. SNAKE!!! My mom’s response to me wanting a snake since I was three has also been “hell no!” One day, one day. I am so jealous of your gorgeous creature! *weeps* I do hope she’ll eat for you though!

    Reptiles totally are trial and error when it comes to lighting, heat, and humidity. We’ve had to adjust the lights and substrate and tank placement for our tortoises, but after 8 years, we’ve certainly got it down! ;)

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