In addition to the cats, and newt, we also have a betta. Samantha bought him for Dave a few months ago. (He still doesn’t have a name…. gladly taking suggestions, because I just call him Fish)

Like all of our previous bettas, he lived in the large (about 2 gallons) fish bowl I’ve had since forever. It looked like one of these:

About a month ago, Dave went into the music studio (where Fish lives on his desk), and there was water all over the desk. After a moment of puzzlement, Dave realized it came from the bowl, and soon discovered that the bowl had a large crack in the bottom. The water wasn’t leaking fast, but it was leaking.

We went out that night and got Fish a new, larger, fancier tank. And I decided to repurpose the the bowl for something I’ve wanted to make for a LONG time!!! A terrarium!!!!

When I was at Mom’s last, I stopped by Terra, a super-large nursery chain in her area that has a fabulous selection of house plants, including many that were weird and wonderful.

I got a couple tiny ferns, and Asian Pitcher Plant, and a Venus Fly Trap. Now the Fly Trap is something I’ve tried to grow several times, but I can never keep it moist enough, so I’m thinking the terrarium is the wat to go. The Pitcher plant is also carnivorous, and very cool looking.

My plan was to stop by the dollar store to get a small plastic dinosaur or two to complete my set up. Unfortunately, small dinosaurs are hard to come by at the moment. If I want robot dinos, I’m set… but that just wasn’t the vibe I was looking for.

It wasn’t until I got home and was rummaging around on the porch for my potting stuff that I remembered I bought a small set of gnome decorations for the “woodland garden”. Since I never got around to starting that before winter, they were still in the box.

They were just perfect! As the plants grow, I’ll probably have to take one or two decorations out, but for now, everyone looks nice and happy.

I picked up a couple bottled of distilled water, because I’ve red that carnivorous plants can be quite fussy about the minerals in tap water. Hopefully, this will be the ticket to keeping these guys growing and thriving!