June 23, 1992

Do Everything at Least Once

Today was Operation Save the Tadpoles. Christy and Ashley found tadpoles yesterday in a mud hole. One good hot dry day the puddle will dry up and all the polliwogs will die.

It was very confusing. Christy brought home twenty to thirty tadpoles, wanting to keep them all.

“There’s no way we can keep twenty to thirty tadpoles!” I insisted.

We went to the lake to get water, then decided to return them to their birthplace until we found out what to feed them. That was when I found that their home was a mud hole.

“Operation Tadpole Rescue is commencing!” I cried throughout the house at 07:00 the next morning. I turned on every light in the house. We got on our bikes laden with jars, water thermoses and a tea strainer. Off we went.

Oh how muddy it was! We had to park the bikes about a quarter mile away and walk. We reached the pond and after much scraping around, collected several hundred tadpoles. We collected some clear water to keep a few for pets. Everyone understood that we would have to release them as soon as they became frogs.

Finally, covered in mud from nose to toes, we hiked back to our bikes and decided to take our charges on over to the pond. We should never have done it. I was so grouchy when we got there that the kids stayed far away and picked me a bouquet of wild flowers. Sean had already stirred up the mud in the pond so I couldn’t see through the water. The tadpoles weren’t moving in the jars and I had wanted to see them swim away in the pond but I saw nothing. It was an anticlimactic end to a morning’s hard exertions. I felt horribly let down. Ah well, one is not often rewarded for sacrifice. My only consolation is that our pets started moving around again after we got home and still.