Each spring finds me knee deep in the frog pond as I pull out hundreds of water hyacinths and haul them to the compost pile. While sloshing around in the murky water, I also try to rearrange things a bit so the frogs have a happy place to live. Roots from the other water plants are thinned, new driftwood is added and any debris that has found its way to the bottom, is removed. It is not the nicest of chores but if I do not do it, it will not be done. The pond would soon fill with gunk and become nothing more than a nuisance. Besides, I like my frogs! I love to hear their nightly serenade as they call to one another. I love to watch them as they dart about the pond. I love the fact that they eat tons of bugs! Dozens of different types of frogs and toads come to the little pond to breed and lay their eggs. Tadpoles will rule the waters for the entirety of the summer as this is a never ending cycle. Throw in a couple of water snakes and the area is one of my favorite places. The critters never cease to amaze me.
Today, I did not come across the water snakes that usually inhabit the pond. They made a hasty exit two days ago when I first started. The frogs, however, watched my every move from their Froggy Hotel. Not once did they budge even when I decided to thin out the elephant ear plants and arrow leaf plants that were clogging the openings to the hollow log hotel. I literally had to bodily remove several frogs as I did not wish to harm them. Crazy frogs!
Now that the pond is clean, the Froggy Hotel is revamped and the muck and yuck removed, the pond is ready for the outside to be landscaped again. Things had gotten a little hairy there as well! In a few days, I will leave the critters in their new home and watch from the kitchen window. I do indeed love these froggies!
Sometimes things are just stereotypical even in nature. Mother Nature can pull some classic moments all her own. Ever since I was a tyke, most storybooks would depict a frog living in a hollow log or stump. I am here not to debunk that myth but rather give full support as there is such a frog (or in my pond, a bunch of frogs and toads) living in the hollow stump in the Frog Pond.
Last winter, Michael pulled a stump out of the creekbed and toted it home for me. He knows that I adore any oddity that I can place in the garden. What a good son he is! Now that same stump has been moved to the Frog Pond. Since it was covered with moss from the creek, I figured that it would be quite at home in the shallows of the little pond. It seems that this stump has become the home of choice for several different frogs none of which are of the same species. A Narrowmouthed Toad, a Green Tree Frog, a Leopard Frog and now one that is yet to be identified, all occupy chambers in the stump. This stump has numerous "limbs" that reach outward from the center and each is hollow. These all provide individual rooms for the frogs and toads. It is like a "Froggy Hotel"!
This afternoon, I heard a different croak in the pond. It did not take me long to drop to my knees in hopes of spying the frog with a different voice. I found him (or at least I found a frog) hiding in the hollow stump, of course! It was dark inside of the stump so identifying the critter was out of the question for the moment but his choice of residence was pretty classical. It seems that all frogs like hollow logs and stumps!
