Monday, June 21, 2010

Frog Pond


I have spent this entire day going through my iPhoto. And I have culled thousands of pictures. Not even kidding. Thousands.
And I discovered something- you have to empty your TRASH in iPhoto. Just like real fucking life, right?
Now see, I've been pretty good lately about trashing pictures after I use them on the blog if I know I don't care to keep them. But I didn't realize that I was amassing a trash can the size of MONTANA filled with discarded photos. So after I emptied that and then culled a few more thousand and trashed THOSE, things seem to be running much more smoothly. As you can only imagine they would. I mean, if my kitchen were iPhoto, I would have had trash spilling and busting and running and exploding throughout the entire house.
Or something like that. Let's just say I would not have been making any bread in the kitchen.

So one of the pictures I lost yesterday but which could be replicated today was one like this:


Now if you click on it, you can see that the black specks are tadpoles. I have hundreds of baby frogs floating around in there. Looks like a sweet little pond, doesn't it? Reflection and rocks and all sorts of peaceful and serene joy in that tiny body of water.
Well. It ain't a pond.
Either three or four Mother's Days ago (I honestly do not remember), Mr. Moon began to build me a little pond to put fish in and so that I could hear the sound of water splashing in the camellia and fern-bed right behind the back porch.
He got really excited about it and went to work and we collected rocks and he designed and he plumbed and he dug and he used an old hot-tub basin which he'd painted green and somehow he got distracted and the pond has never been finished.
This Mother's Day he got interested again and did a little more work and collected more rocks and then, well, I guess he got distracted again but he's not quit. No. No. No. Not quit at all. You can tell that by the fact that the Rubbermaid cart is still sitting right there beside it with rocks and some tools in it.
But the problem is, it's rained about fifty times since he left it there and so now, well, that tiny sweet little rock-filled pond with the tadpoles in it?


And there you go. I do sort of have my pond. There's no fish in it but there's definitely some life growing in the still, clear water.
Frog life. And knowing me, I won't dump the damn cart until the frogs grow legs and hop out.
Lucky for me I have a wheelbarrow. It's got a hole rusted in the bottom as big as a half a dishpan but it'll do for sticks and branches and that's all I need for right now.

Mr. Moon is almost perfect. Practically perfect, not unlike Mary Poppins. But he's not walking on water yet or running any water through those cunning bamboo spouts he constructed two years ago either.
But I know him. Eventually, that water will be flowing and I'll have a real pond. In the scheme of life, it's really not that big of a deal.

Besides. I sort of like the Rubbermaid pond. And the frogs seem to as well. In fact, they appear to be right at home in it.

Life is good. Even in a work cart. Life is good.

17 comments:

  1. Bleh??!!

    A sweet story. But I say Mr Moon should get to work on that tree house...

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  2. I totally want to grow frogs. AND, I think they look like big Godzilla sperm

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  3. Quite the pond! So funny but I wouldn't want to disturb all those little tadpoles either...glad the computer is happier too...yes Apple makes it good on one hand so you don't delete unless you really want to. They make you look for the full delete. I do like that though because I have accidentally deleted photos I didn't want to and I was able to find them on a search...I was sooooo relieved!

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  4. Glad you conquered your photo trash problem. My life is filled with such who-knews.
    I love your impromptu frog pond. I wouldn't dump it either. I've been stopping the lawn tractor to move frogs and toads out of my path - I hate to hurt them, especially when I think about how many slugs they eat for me. I have one in my garden living in the lettuce that's the fattest one I have ever seen. And I've only found one slug in the garden this year. I hope it sticks around!
    It's grand to have a husband who tinkers around, building things in his spare time, even if it takes him a while.

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  5. Oh, the good fortune of those froglets, to have been born in the Moon wheelbarrow! Life is good indeed.

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  6. My boys and I have tried to grow frogs many, many times and they all just die. But we do have a small pond/fountain in our backyard, made with an old utility sink.

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  7. this is sexier than my post.
    well, visually speaking!

    love it.
    love frogs. and, i will touch them.

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  8. Steph- Ain't that life?

    DTG- But the tads are so cute.

    Jo- I know! He needs to build the boy a tree house!

    Rebecca- You are right! Godzilla sperm!

    Ellen- I bet you WERE relieved!

    Mel- One time I sunk a half a whiskey barrel in the garden to make an attraction for toads and frogs to stay and eat bugs. It was fun.

    Amna- Well. Water. Frogs. Tadpoles will result. It will be fun to watch them grow.

    Elizabeth- I remember the picture. I showed it to Mr. Moon because I love it!

    Rebecca- I humbly bed to disagree on the sexy thing. Your post today was incredible.

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  9. Ms. Moon, my dear friend, inspired (and inspiring) writer, voice of the poetic and the prosaic: can I just put on record once and for all how much I LOVE your blog?

    I so often read on my phone, where browser functionality is modest, or at work, where access to functionality is contained, so that my comments are often too brief or truncated to seem thoughtful. But you always provoke thought, and I am always so grateful. Thank you, my friend.

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  10. Nice. I have a cypress/tupelo bog next to the house and there are lots of frogs and turtles in there. It is a nice wetland with ferns and many cypress knees. But I've thought about building a little water fall in another fern bed nearer the porch. I'll give it some more thought. Mr. Moon's rocks are like well...moon rocks.

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  11. The tadpole pic is just brilliant - I'd happily have that framed and put on my wall!

    And geez, aren't tadpoles brilliant themselves. Makes me want to go out and catch me some.

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  12. I love the tadpoles. With the frogs all around, I can see where they come from. What puzzles me is that if you build a pond, after a while little fish will appear. I always wonder where they come from.

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  13. I just think the wohole thing is very sweet.

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  14. Angie C- You are ALWAYS thoughtful. Always.

    Syd- Limerock. I think you should build a little pond. Then come finish mine.

    Nigel- I know. They're like childhood's wild pets.

    Kori- Yep. Pretty sweet.

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  15. That pond is a work of cart. Laugh. Wasn't that just awful?

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Tell me, sweeties. Tell me what you think.