Creepy Crawlies in my Frog Pond!

Yesterday, I spent the morning picking Boysenberries.  While I was walking from the patch to the backdoor, I noticed that a Box Turtle had gotten into the Frog Pond.  This is not extraordinary in the least as they are "pond turtles" but the thing that bothered me is that this turtle had no exit if it wanted to leave.  My Frog Pond is a concrete pond with steep sides.  This makes it extremely easy for a turtle to enter but quite difficult if it wants to depart.  Hmmm..what to do?  I really did not want to wade in amongst the waterlilies and hyacinths to get the critter as I might just find a moccasin in there as well.  My first thought was to lay a piece of driftwood up on the edge with one end down in the water.  This would create a sort of ramp for the turtle to climb.  Simple but effective!  Or not!  The driftwood had been laying out on the ground for several weeks and was dry.  Instead of the one end sinking to the bottom, the whole thing floated!  Now I have a chunk of wood floating freely about the Frog Pond!  Hmm..again!  Next thought was to use the water hose to fill the pond to overfull.  Where the water was spilling over the edge, a turtle could easily crawl to freedom!  So, I laid the hose in the pond and turned on the faucet..and forgot about it!

About three hours later...ooops! THE HOSE!  I rushed outside to turn off the faucet!   Sure enough this technique worked well for the turtle as I saw it striding about the daylilies!  The grass was a bit soggy around back of the Frog Pond but all had ended well!  Then I noticed IT!  A LARGE Wolf Spider (or so I was told) was lounging about on one of the water hyacinths!  This thing was huge!!!!  I sure was glad that I had not attempted that wading expedition to rescue said turtle!  Normally, I have no qualms about having any critters near me but, well, since this thing rivaled an elephant in size, lets just say I would rather it keep its distance!  I watched as the spider did lovely spider-like things which included eating a few of my smaller bugs.  No wonder this lady was so gigantic!  Now I am hopes that this spider does not munch on the dragonfly nymphs as they climb out of the water to change to their airborne counterparts.  It would be most disturbing to think that one lone spider could wipe out my dragonfly population one by one merely by lying in wait for the nymphs to emerge from the safety of the water.  But, then again, I would not want to harm the spider!  I guess the creepy crawlies in the pond will have to fend for themselves! ( I sure do not want to wade about in there to sort out this whole mess!)