Today I went to a new farm with a different adviser. This farm was also on that giant bird reservation. The Egyptian version of SpeedRacer was our driver to the farm. The drive there is beautiful, some of the most amazing sand dunes I have ever seen. The colors are so uniform that is impossible to see any detail, I couldn’t tell if what I was looking at was near hill or a far mountain.
As we were walking around the farm I noticed lots of little frogs, then lots and lots of little frogs. Looking down into the nearest pond I realized there was an infestation of inch long frogs. I was very surprised to see them in the water; I assumed to fish would eat them. I took this assumption from an experience I had at the family farm in New York. I was playing with a little frog then, taking it out further and further down the dock and watching it swim back to shore. Until one time I took it too far and a big fish swallowed my little friend. The adviser assured me the fish would not eat them because Tilapia are not carnivores. I would disagree because they eat mosquitoes and mosquitoes larvae. He said the frogs are a problem because they eat the fish food, but they also disappear three week after the pond is filled. I believe the fish grow large enough to eat the second generation of frogs, but the adviser does not think so.
I was also told that the color of the water is important as an indicator of water quality. If the water is dark green it indicates an abundance of phytoplankton; if brownish-yellow, zooplankton. Having zooplankton is better but both are necessary. The concentration of plankton can be influenced by introducing fermented chicken manure to the pond (yummy).
Once again I decided to take my afternoon swim, today I went out much later than yesterday. I finished my swim about 30 minutes before sunset but decided to stay in and watch it. After a beautiful sunset I swam back to the rocky shore. Normally I can easily step over the submerged wall which is used as a wave break. When the sun goes down the wind really picks up. This caused the water level to rise on my side of the lake, making it necessary to crawl over the wall. The waves caused by the wind made this treacherous and now my hands, feet, and stomach are covered in cuts from the barnacles.
For some reason my room is infested with tiny little ants, they are in everything. They crawl into this laptop’s keyboard, into my socks, my shirts, even into my hat. We can add those ants to the list of things in Egypt that drive me crazy; flies, mosquitoes, and ants.
For some random reason all the restaurants were closed tonight. Therefore my dinner consisted of a 7up, two HoHos, and a bag of chips. Because there is nothing to do here I end up reading a lot. In the three days I have been here I’ve read I Robot, Foundation, and Siddhartha.
Have you ever read a book you liked so much that other books you read seem unimpressive by comparison? Like having your first car be a Ferrari then being stuck with a Corolla the rest of your life.
No comments:
Post a Comment