Diana C. Kirby

These are our Rio Grande Leopard frog babies. I wonder if their momma is looking for them in our pool? Probably not. I suspect that the chlorine in the pool already damaged them and my research shows that even tap water can kill tadpoles. Can’t seem to find an answer about how long it takes exposure to chlorine to hurt them I don’t want to raise expectations about them growing into tadpoles and frogs if they are already doomed. Anyone out there know? In the meantime I will dechlorinate the water they are in and find them a bigger container ….

It really is like the Discovery channel here at our house this year! Today I thought I saw a spot of dirt in the pool. When my Dad checked it out closer, we realized that the clump of black was a slimy mass of frog eggs. So THAT’s what those frogs have been doing in my pool late at night!!! I watched three of them jump in there last night when I let the dogs out for the last time. Not wanting tadpoles in the pool, and sure they wouldn’t survive there, Dad fished (no pun intended!) the eggs out very gently and I put them in a bucket with mostly fresh water, trying not to disturb them. We’re going to share most of them with Kallie’s kindergarten class and our neighbor who’s 5 and in love with frogs. We hope they will turn into tadpoles and beautiful Rio Grande Leopard frogs and live happily ever after! Any advice on tadpole development will be greatly appreciated!

Here are some of the things that were happy in my gardens this weekend. Notice the new lantana TREE that I pruned up growing uninvited in my veggie garden!

Blue Daze
Zinnias
Frangipani or Plumeria
Lantana tree in the veggie garden.

So I keep fishing this beautiful frog out of out pool — though he is perfectly capable of getting out on his own — sometimes I just worry anyway when I see him swimming around and I get the net and put him safely back into the bushes. Tonight I went online and surfed through some frog and toad sites and found the most interesting information.

I found a great website with photos and soundtracks of our native frogs and toads, which actually have no scientific differences. It’s at: http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us

Unfortunately, I’ve spent 20 minutes trying to get this really long link online here for you and it keeps messing up and won’t wrap the text in my post without losing letters. So, you’ll have to search in the Texas Parks and Wildlife website — so sorry…. but it’s well worth it!!!

I’ll probably still refer to the dumpy brown ones as toads and the shiny green ones as frogs!