We’re back at the tadpole puddle in my driveway, chronicling my effort to keep it going through a drought now labeled as “Extreme,” and headed for “Exceptional.” If you want to know how it's going, it's not going well. It's in the upper 90's all this week; trees are dropping their leaves like crazy, and I am disconsolate. Writing and posting this has helped somewhat. We here in Washington Co. Ohio are extremely apprehensive of the Labor Day weekend coming up. Campfires. Fireworks. The slightest spark could ignite our world. Don't do it. Please.
4 July 24. A tiny shower bolstered the pool. By now I'd added leafy branches atop the wire baskets. The heat was absolutely brutal, and the tadpoles badly needed shade. These little leafy huts seemed to do the trick.
By July 9, it was taking 40 gallons of water at a time to keep the puddle filled. The heat was unreal.
The glug of jugs: very satisfying. But the work of hauling and hoisting 320 pounds of water each time they needed replenishing had gotten old fast. I didn't even want to think about what all that water was costing. We're on city water out here. I could never have done this on well water. My July bill very nearly doubled June's bill, but I clenched my teeth and continued on my fool’s errand.
August 9. At this point it was all I could do to keep up with the heat. The puddle would draw down to dangerously low levels, and I'd haul another 40 gallons every three days or so. Discouraging. The tadpoles were showing no signs of metamorphosing. I couldn't figure out what was going on. What natural puddle on the planet would still exist by now? I'd been helping these tadpoles out since the third week of May!
Only three days later, on August 12, I was finally ready to throw in the towel. In this video, I find deer tracks and realize that I will never be able to keep up with the herd of whitetails that had found this magic puddle and were drinking it down every damn night. I knew I couldn't sustain this effort much longer. I was thoroughly sick of worrying about the tadpoles. If there's one thing I know about myself, it is that, once committed to something, I will go down with the ship, chained to the mizzen mast.
August 15, and the 40 gallons are completely gone only four days later. The drought is so severe that any water source is being swarmed by yellowjackets. I cannot tell you what hell it is to live in a place that has been completely taken over by swarms of yellowjackets.
Even worse is to have to scoop tadpoles out of a muddy hole while yellowjackets by the hundreds buzz in your ears and land on your arms and back. But the time had come to get them the hell out of this puddle and try something else. By replenishing the puddle again and again I was the picture of Einstein's definition of insanity, which is
Doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results.
When I scooped them out of the mudbath, counting as I put them into fresh cool water, there were an astounding 170 tadpoles, far, far more than the few dozen I thought were still there. So much for the people who darkly predicted that using hose water would kill them. Yeah, I got a little sloppy after a couple months of this. I didn’t have any other water to use.
Very reluctant to take them in, and not wanting to repeat the overcrowded toad debacle, I divided them into three tubs with about 60 tadpoles in each one. I bought tadpole pellets at the local pet store, and also fed them floating Pond Stix for goldfish. Though I was delighted to find them, I didn't like the tadpole pellets because they sank instantly and I could never tell if they got eaten or not. Tetra Pond Stix are a nice orange color, and they float until they're completely devoured, so it's easy to tell if you're overfeeding. Thumbs up on those! They raised some fine gray tree frogs for me years ago.
If they all changed, I wasn't sure what I was going to do with all those frogs, but I wanted to see if they would metamorphose if they were unstressed, had ample food, and cool, deeper water.
Next: A Surprise in the Morning
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