Thankful at Thanksgiving!

     Counting my Trout in the Classroom blessings this Thanksgiving...Some of our trout  have "buttoned-up" (lost their yolk sacs) and are beginning to swim searching for food!  The students have been patiently waiting to feed the trout. Yesterday  at 2:45 p.m. as we were feeding the trout for the first time, I accidentally dipped my finger in the tank as I was attempting to keep the food from floating on the surface of the water. I quickly looked at the thermometer because one touch and I knew something was not right. I couldn't believe my eyes when the thermometer read 61 degrees. Yikes!The chiller had stopped working! I had checked the temperature twice that day and it read 51 degrees.  At a  TIC training we learned a 1 degree temperature change can stress the trout- wonder what a  ten degree change in temperature so quickly will do- stress a first grade teacher!
     Last year our original chiller had stopped working and we replaced it with this used one and now it also has stopped working. In every cloud there is a silver lining, today I am thankful for the support of Penns Creek TU's Larry Winey who brought us a new chiller yesterday afternoon when we noticed the water temperature was slowly rising in spite of being set at 49 degrees. It  reached a scary 64.5 degrees before we changed chillers. Thankfully he had a replacement chiller to bring us before we lost any trout!
     We slowly lowered the temperature making sure the new chiller was working before leaving last evening planning to continue to lower the temperature today to avoid shocking the trout with another severe temperature change. And then a school closing...hi, ho, hi, ho, its off to school I go! The temperature this morning read 57 degrees which was where I had set the thermostat to avoid a severe temperature change ---so far so good! I lowered the temperature to my normal setting as I feed the fish that were searching for food.
     On a sad note,  I did remove two fry this morning that did not survive the ordeal.  But amazingly three deformed fry continue to survive, we have placed them in a separate basket to help protect them. I have named them Larry, Curly, and Moe.  Below is a picture of them and the other trout as well as  a video of the trout today as a  gentle reminder of all our  Trout in the Classroom blessings this Thanksgiving!