Hey hey, All〜 👋

I’m going to put up the Nagoya trip photos/videos of the Yōkai Exhibit and environs (and play by play) for patrons soon, but first something super freaky-deaky happened. What I’m deeming is a miracle.

It’s a mystery wrapped up in a riddle, tied with a conundrum bow. A miracle!

Please someone explain🙏.

Story:

I had an axolotl for many, many years. At some point I thought it was lonely and bought some minnows to keep it company. You can imagine what happened. I’ve never seen him so happy, energetic and bloodthirsty. Poor minnows. Happy axy.

I did feel I owed the minnows something, so I had my own kind of Minnow Squid Game. I’d buy ten at a time and the last surviving one (or two) I’d rescue and put in a separate tank. Now, these little fellows are a little shell shocked, watching their friends get eaten in front of their faces. But they all recovered, got along well and their numbers increased.

Fast forward to my sweet axy passed away. 🪽

Now I have a bunch of minnow pets. Not too exciting, but cute. Minnows have a lifespan of about 2~4 years, so over time they’d die. One or another. There’s a minnow graveyard in my garden.

Then there were three.

One Pink Variety and two Gray Variety. The pink one kept laying eggs but because they weren’t fertilized, they never hatched. No bebes. Not sure if the grays were male or female, but they never laid eggs and never fertilized the pink one’s eggs. Mystery. Those eggs all disappeared anyway. Not so much a mystery. Most likely eaten.

About nine months ago Pink died. I really liked her. She was so genki and friendly. Made me sad. NINE months ago. Keep that in mind. Only two grays left. After a couple months one of them passed. One gray left. The proverbial (and literal) winner of the Minnow Squid Game.

It’s been alive in the big tank for about three months, all by itself. Note: there’s no gravel. One plant, some rocks arches to hide under. Pretty much living the minnow life all by itself.

Here comes the miracle.

Last week I came downstairs and said hello and went to feed it, when I saw that it had died, too. #sad But for some reason I scanned the tank and saw something moving.

The tiniest baby minnow!! One single baby minnow. Looks just hatched, smaller than a grain of rice!

Where the ever-loving crap did it come from?! That’s not a rhetorical question. I want to know. There were no eggs, no other fish, the particular fish had never laid eggs anyway.

And let’s say there were some eggs hidden somewhere dormant, what made them hatch and why only ONE and why the exact same day this one died?

I’m stumped.

Fishy is still alive (photo) and I named it Kiseki (Miracle). I have to grind food super fine because it’s so tiny.

Any Minnow Specialists out there?

XOXO, stay safe and well, more soon,

terrie