Emma and I went to Dad’s house Saturday to help him finish sorting through all the piles of stuff left from 40 years of living in the same house. I have a scarey collection of old photos now (grin) my original birth certificate (with footprints!), and tons of old books and things .
After we finished in the attic and swept things down, we went to look at the pool to see what Dad would have to do to clean it out and set it up for summer. He drains it each fall, but it collects leaves and a bit of rainfall/snow-melt over the winter. I walked down into the nearly empty pool and took a look at the pile of leaves in the bottom of the pool – and noticed movement in the muck! A bit closer look and I saw eyes peering from under a leaf. After a quick move by me (and, no doubt the fact that he was slow in the cool air), I had a big bullfrog in my hand!
Emma got me an old cookie tin from the trash and we put him right in – and I went back to hunt for more. After 15 minutes, it was quite productive – we had 4 large frogs in the box. It looked like there we two different kinds of frogs – 2 were a dark green, two were more of a tannish brown. I’ll have to research a bit when I get time to see what the difference means. But it was after 3pm, so we said our goodbyes and headed off.
On a good day its a 1 hour drive back to Fairfax. We were quite lucky – an hour later and we were in our driveway. First order of business – release the frogs! We took the tin around back to the pond. I could feel the frogs moving around in the box – they were eager to get out!
There is a little lagoon dug out of the clay and rocks at one side of the pond – its just a bit larger than a 2 feet across and maybe 1-2 inches deep, with some old leaves on the bottom, with easy aceess to the main pond nearby – perfect for frogs. I noticed a couple of goldfish had slipped around the rocks and gotten into it – can’t have them there if we expect frog eggs and tadpoles! They saw me and rushed out of the lagoon into the deeper pond, so I used a couple of small stones and a brick to block the opens the fish had swum through.
I leaned down near the lagoon and, opening the lid a bit, stuck the tin into the lagoon to put some of the pond water in with the frogs. Very little reaction from them – so I took the lid off the tin and gently poured the water and the frogs into the lagoon – two of them jumped away as fast as possible, over the rocks and into the larger pond where they swam around a bit. Two others just hunkered down into the leaves, with just their eyes and nose above the water.
The goldfish were very curious at these strange new things in their pond! They saw around the swimming frogs and seemed to sniff at them Some of the goldfish have gotten quite large since I started the pond with them nearly 2 years ago.
Anyway – we unpacked the rest of the car, and called in a pizza order, and after it arrived, we sat down to watch Angel.
About 10 minutes into the show I heard something (a fan motor?) so I hit the mute …. then opened the door. Wow – what a sound! Those frogs are LOUD! Well, if we wanted that feeling of being in the country – I’d say we’ve got it.