so I ordered tadpoles. The following conversation ensued:

Me: I ordered tadpoles for our pond.

Ken: Oh?

Me: I got 5 because they may not all survive.

Ken: I would’ve thought you’d order like a hundred if you were worried about them surviving.

Me: They were $2.70 each.

Ken: Five is good.

Of course, he was thinking about the teeny tiny tadpoles we saw as kids when kids were still allowed to wander around and play on their own. These were BIG tadpoles that will turn into leopard frogs or bullfrogs (didn’t know which at the time):

three tadpoles on day one. Look – LEGS!

tadpole rescue operations

They actually sent 6, but one was clearly wounded and died soon after they got put into the pond. Another died later and I don’t know why. I had to regularly rescue them from the skimmer – or I was ruining their day just when they’d found a nice place to hang out. It took MONTHS but eventually we spotted an actual FROG!

FROG! (taken with phone, so excuse the poor quality. but FROG!)

So I started taking pictures through the binoculars again, which I will spare you because they mostly suck. THEN we realized we had TWO frogs – and later THREE! Technically there is a possibility of a fourth but we’re assuming that tadpole did not survive. It looks like we have one leopard frog (Brave Frog, who apparently likes to pose for photos) and two bullfrogs (Cave Frog and Eyeballs).

My mom, who takes awesome photographs, got frustrated with my crappy pictures-through-binoculars and brought over her big Canon EOS Rebel and Giant Honkin’ Lens and Tripod and such. Which she left with me, and I started taking photos. I got some nice ones, so I kept going. It became a thing.

So that’s what’s with all the frogs.

Brave Frog posing on a sunny morning.