Tuesday, December 12, 2006

More weather wackiness


Tom said he saw a frog in the pond yesterday when he went to get the mail. It's a gray warm day out there, so out I went, armed with the video camera, to see what I could see. Well, I rounded the corner of the house and I heard about 15 splashes: all frogs on deck decided they were camera-shy.

I can see one now from my window seat, but I won't bother to try to take its picture.

It's December 12th, for crying out loud! I just hope, for the frogs' sake, the weather settles in to one season or another. I am not sure if their internal calendars are telling them this is December or March, but if it's happening in our little pond, it's happening elsewhere, too. I just hope the poor buggers don't go into baby-love mode and hatch out some tadpoles. They'd freeze.

The green thing? It's the pond de-icer (helps keep the fish alive, not ice off the pond; it only thaws a hole about 2" wider than it is). The pond had 2" of ice on it on Thursday.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Please excuse my pond ignorance, but if you want the frogs to hibernate and not procreate, why the de-icer?

El said...

It's only to keep a tiny portion of ice off the pond to let the gases dissipate. Toxic gases from rotting pond stuff (leaves, fish poop, algae) can build up under the ice that'll kill the fish. And yes, the de-icer is temp.-sensitive; it shuts off once things get above 34*... In a "pond" as small as this one, we've gotta micromanage that flora and fauna, ya know, otherwise I would just let things go.

Anonymous said...

Interesting.

I need to learn about frogs, I think.

chandra said...

El,

i write after reading your profile... as an architect El, may i invite you to visit me at :

chandrasart.blogspot.com

warm wishes

chandra

Rusty in Miami said...

I learn something new today. I didn’t know frogs could make it thru winter in a frozen pond