Update: Last spring I had a problem with some ever so noisy and annoying crickets screeching outside my bedroom window. So I went in search of a solution. I learned that frogs ate crickets and so began my quest to populate my garden with cricket eating frogs. Not quite as easy as I imagined, pet stores don’t seem to want to sell them and they are mighty expensive too.
So, I opted to created a frog pond and spa in hopes of enticing some frogs to move into the neighborhood. Well, to my delight and surprise about a week after the launch of the spa, I did in fact have three froggies move into the garden. Yay, I was going to be cricket free soon. Well not so much, these were some mighty tiny little frogs and they laid some mighty tiny little eggs in the pond and I had visions of little gremlin froggies everywhere.
The taddies are still there and don’t seem to be becoming frogs, though I’m not sure why maybe they like being the peter pan of tadpoles. Anyway….Freddie my first and main frogasaurus hung out quite a bit and I often saw him around sunset cooling himself in the pool or hanging in the bamboo plant – then one day. Nothing. Gone. Didn’t see him anymore.
It was a little sad because I thought he had moved onto bigger and better ponds. Though I did hear some froggy serenades at night, so I suspected he still came by to hang out. But, the other day, I finally dragged myself out to the garden to confront the jungle it had become. It was not a pretty sight folks, what a mess. Lots of hacking and pulling and weeding and pruning going on. When I finally worked my way to the end of the garden I picked up a trampled eggplant plant and guess who was there? Yep, Freddie! But my oh my how he has grown! He’s an absolute monster now, bigger than a pack of cigarettes and beefy too.
I was so happy when I saw him I oo’d and ahh’d and told him how proud of him I was for having grown so big and beastly and then I put him in the pool for a swim while I finished the garden. He even let me pick him up and pose him for some pictures.
Isn’t he gorgeous? Makes me a little teary eyed too because my little frog has grown up. I suspect he’ll find a wife and move to the Wash where the big pond is – though he is a tree frog and we have lots of trees so maybe he’ll stick around.
So, I guess the moral of the story is, that if you want a frog bad enough, you can grow one, eh?
Anita Rodgers Mystery Writer 