A Cloud, A Knot, or an Army - Raising Tadpoles

As if I don’t have enough animals around here to deal with, I have found myself caretaker for another species.  This was not intentional.  So many of these things are not intentional.

When Sophie’s puppies started climbing out of their wading pool, I set up a pen for them in the front yard, complete with a box fan and a dog house filled with cedar shavings.  I cleaned out their wading pool and had the brilliant idea to place it in the side yard and fill it with water for the big dogs to play in.  I knew Sophie would avoid it like the plague, but I thought Scout and Bear would enjoy a place to cool off.  The result I should have foreseen was that both boys kept their legs muddy from standing in the pool then wallowing in the dirt.  But that was not the biggest problem.

I noticed this week that the pool water looked sort of dirty and thought perhaps I should empty it and put fresh water in.  On closer look, I realized that some of what I thought was dirt was actually tadpoles.  Hundreds of tadpoles.  While I was sitting on my porch listening to the frogs, the frogs were doing whatever frogs do and prospective frogs were being produced in the wading pool.  So all these little creatures are swimming around, waiting to become ready to breathe air.

I had a fleeting thought that I could just empty the pool anyway, but then I would be guilty of murdering hundreds of little frogs.  Okay, I thought.  I will just wait until they grow up.  They will leave and then I can empty the pool and put it away.

My friend Alice, who is used to my way of thinking, was my first sounding board.  “I have all these tadpoles,” I said.  “What happens when they become frogs?  Do they just jump out of the water or do they have to climb out?  Will they be able to get out of the pool when they are just little tiny frogs?”

Always ready to be helpful, Alice said that I might need to feed them.  What do you feed tadpoles?  Do they eat bugs or what?  They seem to be doing okay without an outside food source.  I am more concerned on how they will get out of the pool when it’s time.  I don’t want to come out one morning and find a bunch of drowned frogs.  The sides of the pool are pretty slick and it’s a long way for a tiny frog to jump.  “Maybe you should put a big rock in there,” Alice said.  But how many will I squash putting the rock in there?  This is getting complicated.  How do I get myself in these situations?

I went to my trusty source, Google, and typed in “raising tadpoles.”  Did I ever get an education in tadpoles!  Who knew it was so complicated for a tadpole to survive to frog-hood?  First of all, I discovered that they are vegetarians until they grow legs and start to breathe air.  Then they become carnivores.  There was a list of foods they can eat – lettuce, cabbage, broccoli and so on.  (They also like to eat mosquito larvae, which is a good reason to let them live!)  But as I read further, I learned that tadpole caretakers need to cook the cabbage or lettuce slightly before serving it to the tadpoles.  I don’t even cook much for myself, much less for the wildlife!  And who cooks for them in the wild, when they grow up in a pond or a stream?  Not going to happen here.  I also discovered that a group of tadpoles is called a "school" if they exhibit schooling behavior.  Apparently some will gather in a group and swim, but some just swim around randomly. In that case they can be called a knot or a cloud or an army.  If they are frog tadpoles, they are an army; if they are toad tadpoles, they are a knot.  I don't even want to ask how you tell the difference in toad and frog tadpoles.  Once they get out of my pool, they can be anything they want to be.

I did discover that I need to provide a large flat rock or some such thing for them to climb on when they develop legs.  My friends at our regular Sunday lunch, when I explained my dilemma, suggested I build a ramp, or little steps that would reach the top of the sides, but I think they were joking.  I did say to my friend Danny that I thought his experience with boy scouts over the years should have made him an expert on the care of tadpoles.  “Oh I know about them,” he said.  “I used to catch them and put them in a jar until they grew legs.” 

“Great,” I said.  “So what did you feed them?”  I knew better than to ask if he cooked for them.

“I didn’t feed them anything,” he said.  “I just watched them swim around until they got legs then I put them back in the pond.”

So, I went home and looked at my knot, or cloud, or school, or army of tadpoles. They were munching on some grass clippings and small leaves that had blown into the pool and seemed perfectly content.  So that problem is solved.  Now I just need to find a large rock.  Or maybe a log.  At least now I don’t have to cook for them.  Next summer, I will keep the wading pool in storage and let the dogs go to the pond to cool off.

Coming Soon

 

It has been a long hot summer.  A long, hot, dry summer.  Gardens have struggled, farm crops have floundered, and animals have suffered.  I have been torn between longing for fall and its cooler weather and hoping the weather will allow at least one more hay cutting and just a little longer for corn and soybeans to beat the odds and produce a crop.  But this week, I have noticed unmistakable signs that fall is approaching.

I was playing with the puppies in the front yard, taking pictures, and I noticed the change in the light.  The sun has shifted just a little in the sky and the light has a different look.  The birds are not quite as busy – their morning song is not quite as carefree.  The night sounds seem a little more melancholy, and the night air has just a hint of a chill.

Saturday brought two more sure signs of the impending change in seasons.  I was driving to town and came upon a sign that announced the advent of the chrysanthemums. 

I am lucky enough to have a spectacular nursery for those cheerful harbingers of autumn just down the highway.  It not only provides a perfect place for me to purchase my own mums, but I can enjoy driving by every day and watching the progression of yellows, reds, bronzes and whites that fill the large area right by the road. 

I used to grow chrysanthemums.  I don’t mean just in the yard, in a casual way.  Our little town, in the 1960s and 1970s had an active chapter of the National Chrysanthemum Society and put on one of the most successful “mum” shows in the southeast.  One year, we were even host for the National Chrysanthemum Show.  Growing mums to show involved a lot of preparation, preparing the beds, planting the tiny slips which were identified by little white markers with names like Gladiator, Happy Face, and Flying Saucer.  Pinching off suckers to shape the sprays, or to encourage the size and health of the single blooms.  Fertilizing, watering, protecting the plants from pests, and planning which categories to concentrate on – it was quite a challenge.  Thanks to a wonderful retired ag teacher in our community, R.E. Bruner, the children of our county had a unique opportunity to participate in this endeavor.  Mr. Bruner provided the plants, helped set up the beds for them and not only gave advice, but visited regularly to oversee and help care for the plants.  I was lucky enough to be involved for several years.  So, the vibrant colors of the mums in the fall have a special meaning for me.

I stopped in town to buy a local paper and, right there at the top of the front page in bright red was the heading, “High School Football.”  Even if I hadn’t already noticed the other signs, this was a sure giveaway that fall is in the air.  I haven’t been to a game in years, but memories of crisp nights, bright Friday night lights, marching bands, and homecoming parades are right there – close enough to touch – when I see that headline. I can close my eyes and smell the bonfire, hear the cheers of the crowd and see the decorated floats in the parade. The Tournament of Roses had nothing on enthusiastic groups of high school students determined to win accolades for the best homecoming float!  A lot has changed about school from my days in the 1970’s, but I suspect football games are still much the same.  The cheerleaders still shout, “Push ‘em back, push ‘em back, waaay back,” the band still plays “The Fight Song,” and the players still wrestle their way into the holy ground that is the end-zone, to the tune of cheers from fans and groans from the opposing crowd.

Halloween candy is filling the aisles of the stores.  I really don’t count that as a sign of fall since the stores feel compelled to put it out as soon as July 4^th is over.  Christmas decorations will be here in a week or two, uneasily co-existing with pumpkins, witches, and goblins.  Cornstalks are dry in the garden, ready to transform into fall decorations.  And hopefully, pumpkins are ripening in someone’s garden (not in mine – a casualty of the hot, dry summer).

The leaves are not yet changing and most days are still hot and humid. But fall is coming.  I can feel it, and the chrysanthemums tell me it’s almost that time.  The sign could just as well read "Coming Soon - Fall".  This morning there is a slow rain whispering through the trees.  I feel the urge to lay in supplies for chili and taco soup.  Maybe I will buy some Halloween candy and cut some cornstalks.  Or maybe I will just sit on my porch and listen to the rain.

Looking for a Pencil

 

Most writers - prose writers, song writers, poetry writers, maybe even writers of technical material for all I know – will tell you that sometimes words just rain down out of nowhere, at any given moment.  More often, writers sit in front of a screen, or a typewriter, or a blank piece of paper, trying to think of something to say.  But, often enough to keep writers writing, the words and ideas just appear, and you can’t get them down fast enough.

My particular muse seems to take delight in sending thunderbolts of inspiration around three in the morning.  I’ve read before that three has some kind of significance and is often the hour when inspiration, or ideas come to people.  I don’t know about that, but I know that it’s a common thing for me to come awake at that time with words spinning in my head.  Even if I wanted to, I can’t ignore them.  So, I keep paper and pencil beside my bed so I can jot things down without getting up.  I used to keep pens there, but there seems to be a force field in my house that causes pens not to write when they are most needed, so I switched to pencils recently.  Of course, that brings up a whole new problem – that of keeping them sharpened.  I had a cute little plastic dog that contained a pencil sharpener.  You put the pencil in a hole in his mouth, turned his tail briskly and he did a great job of sharpening your pencil.  His little ears also flapped, which was kind of cute, but didn’t contribute to the sharpening action.  Anyway, my little dog broke not long ago and I keep forgetting to replace him, so I only have a few usable pencils. 

 

The other morning, right around three o’clock, I woke up with some thoughts that I recognized as needing to be written down before I forgot them.  I groped for my paper and pencil, but no pencil or pen was to be found.  I put on my glasses and looked around more thoroughly and still didn’t see anything to write with.  I think Scout steals my pens and pencils.  I occasionally find the remains of one in the floor, chewed into an almost unrecognizable state. 

I got up and rambled through the house, searching for something to write with, while my thoughts grew more and more incoherent and threatened to leave me altogether.  Of course, my activity roused the dogs and they whined at the door.  I let them out and they immediately broke into their alarm voices – something was out there that wasn’t supposed to be.  Just as they launched off the porch, I heard thundering hoofbeats, a little closer to the house than they should have been.  Dimly, through the predawn darkness, I saw a white horse running where no horse should be running.  Horses were in the garden.

Now the search turned from pencils to a flashlight.  There are seven flashlights in this house that I know of.  Not one of them is working, whether from lack of batteries or malfunction.  They seem to be affected by the same force field as the pens are.  I might have said a few bad words.  The only thing I had to light my way to the garden was a tiny little light that I keep in my purse, a thank you gift for my participation as a judge in a 4-H contest last spring.  Luckily, it gave me enough light to make it to the garden where two horses were running around the perimeter, chased by the dogs who knew they were not supposed to be there.  By the time I got the gate open, I didn’t see or hear a horse.  The dogs had come back from the chase and were investigating the tomato plants.  Thinking they might be hiding in the cornstalks, I traipsed around the garden with my tiny light, trying to see where the horse might be, but they seemed to have escaped back into the pasture. I’m fairly sure I said a few more bad words. It occurs to me that I spend quite a bit of time outside in my nightgown, chasing things or hunting things.  Sometimes I think I might as well just stay dressed when I go to bed.  I am always reminded of James Thurber’s stories of his family’s nighttime excursions.

I found where I thought the horses had broken in, propped it up enough to hold until daylight and went back to the house.  The dogs surrounded me, seeking praise for their efforts in sending the horses back where they belonged and we went back inside.  I gave up the search for a pencil and went back to bed. I lay there a few minutes, trying to remember what I wanted to write down, but the words had skittered away, somewhere between the search for a flashlight and the chase through the garden.  I did resolve to buy a pencil sharpener the next day.  Of course, if I don’t write it down, I will probably forget.  But I’m not getting up again to look for a pencil.  There’s no telling what else I will discover and I didn’t need any more excitement.