Hi there. Hope all are doing well. Not been around as I wish I could say my absence was due to transplant or progress on that front but I’ve just been CF sick. Where I haven’t been in hospital I’ve (we’ve - wife, nieces & nephews) been working feverishly to try and finish the Frop Bog/Canal/Pond as it feels this is the last summer I have to trash my lungs and body on our own Secret Garden.
Hopefully I can get these pictures to show up OK.
The frogs are doing extremely well. Tree Frogs and our precious Green Frogs have all laid eggs and we have around 200 tadpoles of both between the Winter Bog, Canal Bog, and the Pond. Many have become so accustomed to us feeding them worms that when they hear our voices they will scoot out from their hiding places under lilies and present themselves hoping to get food.
We finally have a nice system I’m happy with for the health of the fish and frogs. Water continuously pumps from pond into the biological filter I made from scratch (the plastic bin) winds through Bog Canal, travels it’s length then cascades through these flowers water-falling back into the pond.
Females have a white throat and their ear is the same size as their eyes. Meanwhile, males (above) have a yellow throat, their ears or tympanum are twice the size of their eyes. This is a girl we named “Limey” because when she’s dry she turns the most beautiful lime green color all over. Technically she’s Limey 2.0, as her Mom was from a few years back. She’s gen 2 and has the same disposition as her Mom. More intelligent than all the other frogs, she will hop into your hand for food hence she gets the most worms :)
Great to see you back Jeff. Your presence was certainly missed.
I feel you would appreciate that you inspired a recent backyard improvement of mine. Nothing like yours, but a little fountain and some flowers. Perhaps one day I’ll hit you up for tips on how to expand to a beautiful pond like yours ;)
Video of one of the things we find so entertaining: “Frog Wrestling”
This is a sequence of pics. 26 of them with the ones above included. Flowers, some more frog pics, tadpoles, and the fish our nieces and nephews picked out to replenish our pond as we lost all our fish this past winter. Hopefully I can catch up on messages. Take care all :)
Awesome pond JP, and glad you posted.
I’ve been letting the milkweeds grow in part of my lawn for butterflies. Haven’t seen any though. :/ Plenty of frogs though that I escort to the woods when mowing the lawn (the occasional snake, too, that I uh wait until they escort themselves…)
Jeff - so glad you’re back to posting! Stunning pics and you’ve made an oasis in your yard. If I might ask, as you do live in cold climates, do you have to put out new plants each year, or do the plants make it through the winter fine?
