Tadpoles Anyone?

What do you get when you cross a dilapidated pool that is structurally sound enough to hold water but not to swim in, days and days of rain, piles of putrefying leaves, and Mother Nature?

You get a quagmire of sludge filled with millions of mosquito eggs and larvae that will eventually grow up to make dusk in your backyard an all-you-can-eat bug buffet where you and your family are the nightly special served up whenever you go out to play.

You also get dozens of tadpoles. Luke’s teacher has been looking for a tadpole so the class could watch it turn into a frog. When John was at the neighbor’s house trying to get the pump running so we could drain the quagmire and cause a disturbance in the mosquito force to rival that caused when the Death Star destroyed Alderaan, he noticed the tadpoles. Luke was very excited to tell his teacher he could bring in tadpoles. She said, “Oh. Greeeaaat.” Was this sarcasm? Could be, since there aren’t many days of school left and school will be out before the tadpoles turn to frogs. Then what will she do with them?

Tadpoles are also quite the prima donnas. They are very specific on the containers they like. They prefer to be in rain water. They like lettuce but it must be boiled and frozen before it can be given to them. They also prefer organically grown greens. They like protein but only a couple times a week. They eat constantly, and you have to keep an eye on their food supply and feed them again as soon as the food is gone. Sounds like some kids I know.

So here we go on our collection journey.









The Collecting:

The Result

We ended up collecting more than the class needed. The boys really wanted to keep the extras as pets. I really, really, really did not. Really. Once we had them collected and started doing all the work of transferring them to their final home, etc. the boys quickly lost interest. So, we put the extras in the base of our creek/waterfall and maybe they’ll survive there and turn into frogs one day. I guess if they die, we can always start biology class a few years early.