Pond frogs

We love the frogs in our pond. And up until 4 weeks ago......
that meant our one big bullfrog named "Freddie Peepers" of course.

Well with all the extra rain we have gotten this summer, "Freddie" decided to go on "Walk-about"
He disappeared when our yard and the surrounding neighbors yards all had standing water somewhere in them.

He was gone and we were heart-broken as he had been in our pond for almost 2 years.
One evening we heard frogs calling from our pond and went out to investigate.....
Now we have at least 10 small frogs in our pond and they are sounding off on a nightly basis

We miss "Freddie", but having all these replacement frogs has really made me smile
especially hearing their evening serenade.

Our bulldog Chuck is also enjoying them as he likes to woof back at them as they croak and peep at him
I just wish I knew what they were saying to each other.

We haven't ever seen any frogs or toads even in or around our pond. So last weekend while we were at our friend's house in Illinois their daughter caught us a couple frogs and toads and about a dozen tadpoles to bring home.

I haven't seen any of them since releasing them in the bog at the end of our pond, but I did hear some peeping going on last night.

Hey, don't be shocked, but I'm still around. Working some odd hours and days off. I still have not seen any of the frogs that I had at my pond from last year. I bought 15 bullfrog tad polls from S. Carolina that have since turned into frogs. Can't find a one. If they are still in or around my pond, they must gone into some kind of super stealth mode. Don't what else to say, but Happy Ponding.

Our back yard is surrounded by woods. We live in a wet area so anytime it rains we have hundreds of them singing away back behind the fence. I'll get my lump sum in September and finally start my pond. I was going to build an elevated deck with a three foot pond in the center, but thought, "Why buy all of that treated lumber?"

My friend across the road has a backhoe and will dig it for free, I can buils a smaller elevated one with the leftover liner.

We are putting in a pond regardless. We will pull the trailer down to Paamul and visit with John ans Debra for a month before we take the plunge. He and Debra have fisished the book which I retitled "Goldfish" and they loved seeing their name in print. You'll see why I named it Goldfish soon, we are almost done.

Yes, JW, you need to watch it. I think you offended me once a long time ago. Wait. Maybe that was somebody else with the first initial of J. LOL.

I was surprised when Pete told me there was a nice sized frog in one of the half barrel pots. We were surprised it could jump that high. Well today, I saw two nice sized frogs in the small pond and a few minutes later one was in the pot so evidently it isn't hard for them to jump that high. Do you think they can smell water? How do they know there is water in those pots?

Hey, I stand corrected. I spotted a frog about the size of my thumb at the edge of my pond from about thirty feet away. The moment it spotted me it jumped into the pond, and went under a lily pad. Not as friendly as the Cascadia Frogs I had last year.

Happy ponding?

JW, Debra is really a hoot, she acts quiet at first but she and John really have a great sense of humor. Paamul is beautiful, a nice cove comes in right there with a barrier reef across it, you can get a boat past the end of it though.

We had a bullfrog for several years but I think the raccoons got him last fall. So I bought four frog tadpoles about a month ago, two tree frog tads and two bull frog tads. I hope they are still out in the pond but I have not seen nor heard hide nor hair from them.....

Just an up date on the tad polls from South Carolina. So far there are two small bull frogs that are now about the size of my thumb, and several more tad polls with some developing legs. They don't let me get to close to the pond before they go scurrying off across the lily pads and into the deep. The Local Northwest Cascadia frogs that I had last year would let me get within a couple of feet before they would casually jump into the water. I originally bought fifteen of the S.C. tad polls from a local pond supply called Hoshi Koi, and it looks like i only have about five left. Not sure if the food source in the pond was enough or what. We'll see what comes of it soon.

Happy ponding,

My wife Donna and I go for walks throughout the neighborhood, and The closest pond of any kind to use that we are aware of is about a half mile away. Not sure if ant frog would know to explore any further than outside our fence line. Good try JW. Any outside critters in your ponds?

I'm just hoping my frogs will stick around this time around and come back next spring.

Well, the bull frogs have vanished for the winter. I haven't seen a sign of them for about a week now. I hope they found themselves a nice warm place to tuck themselves into for the long winters sleep.

Trust me on that one. If I see any kind of eggs, they will be scooped up and put into a holding tank for safe keeping. Even if I have to turn them loose in another pond later.

Get thee to the front of the queue for the position of Queens Poet (note how I have clevely dodged the issue of realising I don`t know the correct spelling of Laureat). Or at least the queue for being Purple Ronnie.


Hammocks

Wow, I have to admit, you lost me there......................

That was just a spammer, I banned him.

Hi everyone, I hope everyone had an enjoyable and blesses Thanksgiving with family and friends. It's been awhile since I had a chance to sit down and get back into any of my social networking, here and other sites.

The three North Carolina bull frogs that I brought home as tad poles in the spring of 2010 are still around. Of course they are neatly tucked in somewhere near the pond for a long cold & wet winter here in the Northwest. During this last summer the three of them have grown quite a bit. One, the biggest has out grown the other two to about the size of my fist. Sometime in the middle of September 2011, the two smaller bull frogs became harder to spot, and I believe that the largest of the three started to get territorial. Up to that point they could be seen sitting near each other at the same side of the pond. After the latest late summer growth spirt in the big bull frog, the other two where getting real hard to find at the edge of the pond.

Around the middle of this last summer I experienced my first Grey Heron attack. I can't get over how bold these feathered critters are. In three days this thing cleaned out all of my Shubunkin's & Gold fish. I ended up building a half inch diameter PVC pipe frame 2 feet high, and 5 foot by 5 foot square. I painted it flat black to blend with the netting, and then I used bird netting. I anchored the netting with black zip ties and cut & bent in half metal coat hangers to stick into the ground around the pond. That put an end to the unwanted visits from this migrating grey heron.

I still haven't done a final fall cleaning of my pond & at this point I feel that i will just wait until early spring to clean and re-pot the pond plants.

I would like to wish everyone here a "MERRY CHRISTMAS", and a "HAPPY NEW YEAR". I'm not going going to giving in to the unwanted changes that the liberal anti-American's want to oppose on all of us. And if anyone is offended, it's me. This is a Christian founded nation, and I am proud of the fact that I am a CHRISTIAN, and an AMERICA loving PATRIOT. "May GOD bless America".