Bullfrog

Figuring that I was going to be sore, anyway, from the past 24 hours of rescuing the house from the great sewer back up of ’08, I decided to tackle a few garden ninja tasks. My neck was going to hurt, my back, my shoulder, my ass… might as well have something to show for it besides a warped laminate flooring system.

I have had a pond in my backyard since we moved in over 15 years ago. It is home to various lilies, anachris, a few fish, a small water cascade, the occasional cottonmouth snake, and a lot of toads and frogs. I’ve kind of grown accustomed to their croaking for most of the night. Except for those leopard spotted suckers. Each year we manage to have at least two of ‘em that grow to the size of salad plates. They are nearly impossible to catch (for me) and always manage to scare the bejeepus out of anyone that is walking by when they decide to launch. Well, I was moving some flagstones around and a 4″ version (the giant yet to be) was scared into paralysis at the concept of really being caught. I grabbed him and put him in a bucket. Took him to a neighbor who has a pond and has mentioned that she “always wanted frog song in her pond”. If I can find this guy’s date, she’ll have her own perpetual supply and I may have broken the cycle…

Roots & White Mice

Most recent calamity in this house? The house flooding. Yep, toilet overflowing and all of the bath tubs and showers were backing up. This is occurring at about 1:00 in the morning. Pulled well over 45 gallons of water off the laminate flooring with a wet/dry vacuum, used every towel and absorbent thing in the house. Plumber has been and gone. Roots had clogged the main connection between my house and the main. A synchronicity of timing caused just the right amount of “white mice” to be trapped in the roots in the sewer line. Disaster. Remember the earlier post about appliances croaking? We have no functioning dryer until Wednesday. Heading off to the laundromat…