Jeff

Well you have looked at the photograph below, and guessed it, Jeff is a lizard.    A bearded dragon  lizard.    But first we must not confuse the name with Geoff, the gold fish, that belongs to Donna and Patrick, and who is soon to find a home in the Palmer's gold fish pond.   

No this Jeff, spelled differently, is a lizard, and he belongs to the Palmer household.   We are currently lizard sitting while they are on holiday.   And he is so cute.   He likes to sit and watch the world outside his box, which is called a vivarium.  And already we are talking to him, as we walk past.   He also likes to paddle in his water bowl and eats cut up dandelion leaves, lettuce and pieces of carrot.   

 But most of all he loves crickets, live of course, which have to be dusted with vitamin powder or calcium powder.  The idea is to shake the crickets from their box, into a plastic bag, tip some powder into the bag, and shake it a bit, and then release the crickets into the vivarium.    I feel cruel and heartless when I do this, but of course Jeff loves the crickets, and quickly catches them, and chomps them up.

Jackson has typed a list of instructions for me to follow, and it all seems very clear so far.  

Which brings me onto the subject of lizards.   Scott once owned a bearded dragon lizard called Pogo and he out grew his first vivarium very quickly, so a larger one was bought, and still Pogo kept growing.   Pogo grew to about 60cm long, which apparently his a normal length.   He ended up eating locusts instead of tiny crickets, and once they got out of their box and were found in all corners of the house.   One was found on Donna's pillow, which did not impress her.    Pogo was eventually given to another family and lived until he was about 8 years old.  

And the photograph below was not a pet, and now I realise it was not a bearded dragon.   It does not have the pointed scales around the neck and face, and the markings are different.   So now I do not know what type of lizard it was, but it was sunning itself outside Darren's back door in Adelaide, Australia.    I did not go too near it case the thing bit me.    Coward that I am.     

The bearded dragon lizard does come from the deserts of Australia, and is a very docile lizard.   But Australia has some pretty large and fearsome lizards.

Darren has suggested I catch some live spiders for Jeff.    You must be joking, Darren.