Last spring we realized we had a million tadpoles swimming around in the water that had collected in our pool cover. I mentioned this to KVeg. And since KVeg is an animal rights activist she insisted that we "save" the tadpoles before we opened the pool. ("saved" meaning to relocate to a more hospitable environment.)
KVeg came over one afternoon before the hubby was to open the pool. I got her an old, rinsed out litter bucket and she went to work. For 30 minutes she used the pool strainer to scoop out as many tadpoles as she could get and dump into water in the bucket. The idea being we'd take them and dump them in the stream right down the road. (apparently for other animals to snack on - but I didn't share that thought with KVeg....)
When KVeg finished she grabbed the bucket - and not heeding the hubby's earlier warning - tripped on a brick we have holding down part of the pool cover and dumped the whole bucket-o-tadpoles all over the concrete and in the grass. Since she was hell bent on saving (using them for feed...) the tadpoles we got the flat bottomed shovel and began shoveling them (as many as possible) back in to the bucket. And then we went and dropped them in the stream..
This past weekend was really nice out and the hubby and I had left the windows open at night. But we didnt' get any sleep (get your mind out of the gutter...) All we heard for two nights in a row was exceptionally loud mating calls from frogs. This was confirmed when the hubby found frogs "humping" in the water in our pool cover. (I explained they really weren't "humping", but rather "mating".) It occurred to me then we should try and get the eggs out of the cover before they turn into tadpoles. (unlike last year...) Sure enough I went and took a peek at the cover and could see coils of eggs. And two pair of mating frogs. Did I know they were mating pairs? Because the male was attached to the top of the female.... and they stayed that way. For quite some time I noted...
Frog eggs after being scooped out of the cover:
We rounded up all the eggs we could see and the 2 sets of mating pairs and put them in a bucket. Notice, we didn't invite KVeg over to help. Love you sweetie - but we didn't want a replay of last year. ; )
The hubby carefully carrying out the relocation:
And here is one happy couple wandering off to enjoy their new diggs:
However, the story does not end here.....
All Sunday afternoon we continued to hear frog calls. Do you know how loud they are?!?!? So over the course of a few hours in the evening the hubby would grab the bucket, fill it with pool cover water and hunt the offending frogs. They would get scooped up with the pool strainer and deposited into the bucket. After he had a few he'd head down to the stream. By the time we went inside last night the hubby said he had successfully "relocated" THIRTEEN frogs!!
But alas, we could still hear frog calls. So the hubby closed all the windows and turned on the A/C last night. Does that mean the frogs won??
1 comment:
My mother considers herself quite the "frog farmer" down in SC! The sound doesn't bother her, though, and she and Dad refuse to take the pool cover off until all the tadpoles become hoppers. It's who they are, don't you judge them!
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