Backyard friends

Every spring in the creek down the street there are tons of tadpoles. Every year we catch some, mostly because I encourage my kids to because I remember visiting my Uncle Tat and Aunt Mary in Murphys and I did it in their creek. I had high hopes of one day nursing my little tadpole into a giant toad I could enter into the Calavaras County Frog Jumping Contest. That never happened. Each year we would visit Yosemite or Big Trees National Park, camping on our way home. For some reason I was not allowed to keep a jar, with a lid, full of harmless tadpoles in the tent trailer. This meant they had to stay out in the cold. And every year they died. End of my frog jumping career.

So Matthew and Katie carry on the tradition with sacraficial tadpoles from our creek. Ocassionally, well, actually only once,maybe twice - lesson learned - they (Matthew) came back with poison oak too. The tadpoles end up in our pond in the back yard. They are great at eating the mosquito larvae that happen to appear each year at this time.

Problems solved. Or so I thought.

A couple years ago one of those tadpoles actually survived. It even turned into a frog. Now this frog knows a good thing. He hasn't left. He hibernates somewhere and each spring one night usually in the wee hours after midnight and before 4am it starts. This awful noise. Croooooaaaaaak, over and over. Mike always wakes up. Sometimes I do. The really fun part is when Matthew wakes up - the pond is outside his window - and asks in sleep stupification what is that noise?? I lovingly remind him it's HIS FROG!