Showing posts with label frogs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label frogs. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Peaches and Frogs

 

These are the creatures living in our pond now. Until last night’s rain, we’d never seen nor heard them. I suppose they are just using our pond as their love den, and we’ll probably see some little tadpoles soon?

I had to take these photos from my bedroom balcony, because as soon as I’d get too close, the little flippery creatures would dive for cover. Yeh, the pond could use some more water. And a good scrubbing. The weeds could use some picking, too. Nothing like seeing your digs through a photograph to realize you’ve got more work to do….

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In this photo you can just barely see one of our koi fish. We have 4 in here, at least I hope so. Last week, hubby saw a small bull snake taking a swim in there, too. gah!

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Anyone know what kind of frogs we have in our pond? I’m guessing a Plains Spadefoot because it says they are stimulated by rain, and the frogs have a single sharp spade at the bottom of each hind foot for burrowing back into the ground. (Click on that link because you can even listen to the sounds of that frog and many others. Kind of cool!)

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I’m going to give them a few large rocks to climb back out of the pond today, because they seem to want out, now that they’ve been busy ‘doing-the-deed’ all night. If the ground dries up, after last night’s hard rain, and becomes to hard they’ll have a much more difficult time burrowing back into it.

I’ll miss them, though. There is just something so cool about living in the desert and hearing sounds typically associated with swamps and wet areas.

I hope they’ve laid some eggs, so hopefully I’ll be hearing and seeing some froglets soon.

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Last year we had no fruit on our trees because we had a late freeze and a snow storm at the end of May and into June. This year, our fruit harvest will make up for that disappointment.

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Our tree is groaning from the weight of all those peaches.

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We tried our first peach today and it was so sweet and yummy. I think the peaches could still use another week or so to ripen just a little bit more. But I’m so excited. We have peaches!!!

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And the apples aren’t doing too bad either.

I took this photo of one our apple trees last week. This is a Yellow Delicious. Our other apple tree is a Red Delicious.

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Unfortunately the apricot tree to the right hasn’t produced any fruit since we bought the place. I wonder that it’s not a self-pollinator type and won’t produce fruit without another apricot tree nearby. Anyone know?




From the Tower of,