Sprouting Up Organically Blog

Two of the Pacific Tree Frogs

Well, we certainly hadn’t planned it that way, but once again Mother Nature had other ideas, this time in the form of Pacific Tree Frogs. They are apparently well entrenched around here, which we had an inkling of because we kept finding them hiding out in our greenhouse. We certainly welcomed them in there, figuring they would eat a good portion of the bugs that come in looking for warmth and water. They have done a good job so far and we haven’t had to use any sprays last year or this year.

What we didn’t know is that by setting up the kids 10 ft wide Easy-Set pool early and then unintentionally letting it deflate when the warm spell in March was over, we were providing the local frogs with the perfect breeding pond. Guess we should have known, but somehow it just never crossed our minds, what with homeschooling, farmers market and general life.

The frogs in our yard must have put out an all-points-bulletin call to every frog within a mile radius (the river is about a mile away, as the crow flies), because one night we thought we were going to be called in for noise pollution. That night turned into about a week, and by the end of it we had a pool full of  jelly-like globs of frog eggs, both disgusting and cool at the same time. There seemed to be a guard frog left behind for a while, until the eggs hatched into tiny tadpoles and then we have only heard the adults occasionally since.

What we are left with now is literally hundreds, if not thousands, of baby tadpoles trying to exist in a pseudo-empherial pond. We are having great fun watching their growth, and have resorted to feeding them crushed goldfish flakes and “raining” water into their pool whenever needed. I am wondering, however, what we are going to do if even half of them turn into frogs. Tread carefully? Relocate most to the river bottom? Stay tuned…..