Tadpoles! 4/29/16

Froggy! (watercolor by Karen Kelly)

Tadpoles! Millions of tadpoles!

Each year the cover to the dark blue pool cover fills with water and leaf debris. As winter melts away, spring days bring sunny rays that warm the pool top pond.

I look at the calendar and realize I had not signed up to be one of the "first" customers for having the pool opened. I'm hoping I'm not "too late" - hoping that I won't experience another TADPOLE episode!

Days passed and I didn't check the pool pond, but I did call Pool Boys (Rodney Hoskins) to be put on his schedule.

Spring flowers popped up and disappeared. Spring shrubs bloomed, too. The giant oaks dropped fuzzy strings "everywhere"!

The purple finch returned and built another nest under the eaves of the cottage. Their offspring grew without my help and are now flying back and forth over the pool top pond.

With the help of Angie's List, I have Gutter Boys come out to clean the gutters and downspouts. The Gutter Boy who was here and I discussed gutters and gutter covers and . . . TADPOLES!

He said, "Looks like you have a lot of tadpoles!"

A lot of tadpoles! A LOT OF TADPOLES!

OK! I know I heard frogs croaking nearby awhile ago! But, how long ago? A month? Two months?

Whatever! It doesn't matter when! What matters is that the pool top pond had many thousands of tadpoles swimming and swimming around in the warm water. I felt remorse and guilt! These poor creatures would not live much longer - that is - just maybe if they swam their way to the neighbors' back lake they might, maybe just might make it.

Just as I came in here to my computer to write this "story", I see that Rodney has set up the drainage equipment to remove the water and the tadpoles!

As my counselor, Mr. Edgar Gibson, says "Mistakes are lessons. Problems are opportunities".

No sharing jars of tadpoles with home schoolers or NextDoor.com children. No Japanese tadpole soup (my idea). No tadpole fertilizer for my plants!

Reminder to myself: Ask Rodney to put me on his early list for 2017!