Not the quality I’ve become used to, but I wanted to share how Cave Frog got his name. I had two chances before he went in too deep to see, and this was the better of the two. Because it’s not what I really hoped for, I’m including a bonus frog (a repeat for my twitter followers) – a shot of Eyeballs in the lilypads that I just LOVE.

Eyeballs is hanging out in the lilypads.

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.

Yes, if you read the copyright and thought “what???” you read it right. While I was away my husband decided to use the camera and get a picture of Cave Frog in the lily pads. I think he did a pretty good job!

I was lucky enough to spot Eyeballs in the middle of the lily pads. He’s quite skittish though – as soon as I tried to move to a new angle to get his face he dove underwater. Ah well – it was fun to see my frog in the lily pads!

Fairly certain this is Cave Frog, since he sat still for a few pictures before squeaking and diving into the water (Eyeballs rarely gives me more than one chance). Yes, it was a bit dark when I took this so I used a flash. His green is stunning!