Lazy Froggie Days

If we were later into the summer, I would definitely call this year's the Summer of the Frog. Thankfully, there are many more weeks of summer left..so I will not peg it quite yet, though it's tempting. :) I also have to remember that Brielle isn't too fond of frogs...she'd most likely prefer we move on from our frog fetish soon. But she'd also have to admit that she enjoyed catching tadpoles today...and she didn't opt out of yesterday's bullfrog-catching race either.

Bullfrog Catching Race
We had the 3 Kraske kids over for most of yesterday...and over the span of the 6 hours, they had caught some of the frog-catching fever we've been getting around here. Although they aren't quite as crazy about frogs as our oldest is, they were game enough to go hunt for frogs and play with the three bullfrogs Isaiah caught with his red net (worth all of its $6.99) in the pond at the park down the street. We built a makeshift 'terrarium' to enclose our three amigos so they wouldn't be stuck in a bucket all afternoon. As you can see from the pictures below, we built our terrarium with our leaf-catching pool net, the shed doors, sticks, rocks, and 2 by 4's. We also placed a shallow pail of water for the bullfrogs to jump in if they need to moisten themselves. We also caught minnows and put them in the water, hoping the frogs would eat them. The kids took turns entering the terrarium to check out the bullfrogs up close. The bullfrogs quickly became victims to an innocent game of catch and release. The goal of the game was to be the fastest to catch a bullfrog with the red net or bare hands and release it in the pail of water. I'm pretty sure you can guess who used his hands to win that race. He was also the one who released them back into the pond in the evening....hoping he will catch them again the next day or the day after. The kid's got frogs on the mind a lot lately...

Hughes Water Garden Center
Papa and Gran had told us months ago about this Hughes Water Garden Center that we needed to check out sometime and we finally decided to go today. They had told us we could get tadpoles there for free...and we were tired of being unsuccessful at catching tadpoles around here, so we hopped in the car and made it to the center one half hour before closing time. We wished we had had more time to explore! It really is a gorgeous place with so many water features and garden displays all over the premises. It would totally be worth it to go back and just walk around the lovely pond and sit by some of the water fountains. But, we were on a mission, of course...and so off to the tadpole trough we went. We managed to catch 15 or so tadpoles of varying sizes, most of which are rather teensie. According to the center worker, they are all Pacific Tree frogs, natives to Oregon and not pests like the bullfrogs around our park. We lingered only long enough to take a few pictures and back to our house we drove to introduce the tadpoles to their new home: a frog planet terrarium we bought at a garage sale last weekend.

Deep breath. We can relax now. No more catching-tadpole pressure breathing down our necks. Only tadpole-feeding, tadpole-caring, and tadpole-surviving stuff....=) What have we gotten ourselves into? Clearly, this frog season ain't over....cuz 'frog went a courtin' and found my son!! It's Frog and Prince, not Princess!!