The Tadpoles Go Terrestrial

Their little tails are slowly ebbing away. Forearms and back legs are growing. And this morning, two tadpoles, aka toadpoles, had climbed out of the water and up on the gravel rocks. So I transferred them from the glass bowl on my desk to a terrarium to keep them from jumping all around the kitchen. The Putterer

Longing for Saturday

I can't believe it isn't Saturday. I am in a gardener's state of mind this morning and drat, if I don't have to go to work and be an editor.

Jim took the day off and I am more than envious.

This wood poppy is a transplant from my neighbor's yard and this year it is practically a bush with babies coming in around it. It's a spreader, but I don't mind. I love it's lemony color protruding from the shady spot next to my chair.

Important ache and pain news from a crazed doctor with as much personality as he had medical knowledge came yesterday. I am, in fact, he said, getting old. This news I celebrate, since the alternative--sickness and death--contradicts my life goals. (And since, deep inside, I've been worrying that it was metastatic disease.) I couldn't be more elated.

Thus, my urge to be out in the dirt reveling in the quick-time growth of the plants, speedily arising so incredibly fast, that you wonder that you can't actually see them morph before your eyes. Life is good.

This weekend, after I dig out the lilies, (which by the way, are an invasive type that I've learned are not welcome because they crowd out other plants), I plan to dig in some milkweed, which I've ordered specially to supplement my butterfly bushes. The bushes attract the butterflies, but the milkweed nourishes them. They are a host plant for the monarch butterfly and so I hope to do my part in helping my butterfly visitors find comfort for their journey. Another tribute to Earth Day?

Speaking of which, my Earth Day tadpoles are swimming strong in their dish. I am going to drop in some stones to create a kind of beach for them to crawl out onto. They are still living on my desk in the kitchen and I'm watching them for evidence that they might need to transition to the airspace above the water. I worry I'll come down in the morning to a toad infestation. But I'm afraid to leave them outside at night as they might fall prey to some nighttime predator.

The morning light was a blue and pink and yellow in the sky over top the spring green in the treetops. What a shame, I'm bound for a cubicle today. The Putterer

The Putterer Makes Every Day Earth Day

Today in my office an unusual exchange took place between editors. By tradition we pass copy from one to another, the writer, the editor, and the top editor each takes a turn at synthesizing and perfecting the sentences and paragraphs that will eventually be published in the magazine. But instead of words, my friend and fellow editor Laura Helmuth passed along a plastic yogurt container housing some 30 tadpoles and I was delighted to accept the gift.

The gift was precipitated because I had casually mentioned the other day while I was in Laura's office my ambition to invite toads into my garden. I had heard that they live happily near small pools of water in dark shady corners requiring only an overturned flower pot for shelter. In return, they will eat up all the bugs and pests that plague my plants. They are the necessary ingredient that every gardener desires, a living, breathing pesticide machine.

So my toads, should they survive their transition from tadpole to hopping garden johns, are yet another creature in my backyard ecosystem--birds, butterflies, bees, cats, kids, dogs, friends, (an occasional foe) and now toads. In my backyard garden, I practice love for mother Earth. I honor the plants and trees, I study the natural world. With compost, I return the nutrients to the soil. I grow food. I grow flowers. And I rest and I play there. This is my tiny corner of the Earth. And I am a conscientious steward.

And that brings me to another topic. Jan, a fellow garden blogger, who hosts a blog called Thanks For Today is requesting that garden bloggers share the ways that they are "actively practicing a greener lifestyle and contributing to protecting our environment." And so, Jan, here's my pledge to you. The first tadpole to grow legs and climb out of the primordial pond, or yogurt container, and take up residence in my garden will be named for you. Jan, the garden toad, we'll call him. The Putterer