Sunday

Tadpole Observation (A Cautionary Tale)


In early spring the frogs gathered by the hundreds in our small pond and spent a very noisy weekend engaging in...well, you know. Think Woodstock, 1970s, lots of free love and partner swapping. Egg upon egg upon egg was floating in the water. It was so remarkable I had to photograph it. See an earlier post here.

Really, it was a bit ridiculous.

I swiped a few eggs for observation and we watched tiny tadpoles hatch and devour algae and leaf litter in a tank set up in the office. We'd keep them for a few days then dump them back in the pond to experience bigger digs. Rinse and repeat. We're on the fourth or fifth tadpole infusion here.

Except this time, I scooped something else up too. Leeches. A lot of leeches.

We've seen a few tadpoles in the pond with a leech attached to them, but they seemed just fine. The leech would glean a blood meal and off they'd go, right? All knowing Google told me the leeches in my pond primarily ate the detritus in the muck at the bottom.

Google was very wrong.

Last night we noticed a tadpole in the tank had a leech on it. And then 2 and then 4...and I didn't want to try and remove them because I thought detaching them might injure the poor guy more.

Checked on the little guy this morning and there is nothing left of him but some translucent skin and a dark green little mouth. Looks like they saved the lips for last. Ugh. Shiver me timbers.



Tuesday

How on Earth to find time for blogging?!

I subscribe to many [too many] blogs and I'm constantly amazed that people find the time to write -- seriously, how do you gals do it?! I have a number of things working against me here. There's the gorgeous scenery when I look out from the office window:


Between staring off into space at that mountain in the distance or our little patch of spring bulbs,  nothing is getting done. Next thing I know, I'm wandering outside, pulling weeds and dead-heading daffodils and chasing after Claire whose practically upside down trying to fish more tadpoles out of the pond. Another blog post, auto-saved and forever archived because I've lost my train of thought.
 
Then there is my love affair with long run on sentences and 900,000 word blog posts. I'm wordy in person too. And don't get me started with yapping on the phone, my favorite pastime since I was 14. And Facetime! Right smack there on the computer's task bar -- very bad for productivity Apple, very bad indeed.


And then there is this kid who worms her way into the office with her too-short bangs and cuddly bear and says, "Mommy I've made a whole picnic, come eat." And then this post too must end as duty calls and pretend picnics are way more fun. But at least I'll post this entry.