We’ve got three artifical eco-systems going outside now. One contains rocks, twigs,
and less than an inch of water on just one end (it’s tilted) so that the mini-toads can
climb out of the water easily. The other one is mostly water, for tadpoles that still
don’t have legs. The third is an actual fish tank, with minnows, that came along for
the ride when John scooped up the tadpoles to begin with. Yesterday I caught a
bunch of mini-toads hanging out on rocks and drying out, so that’s probably a good
thing.

It’s just weird around here – doing ANYTHING “extra” outside in this
climate takes so much extra energy. Trying to foster growth when the climate itself
is going dormant is not an easy thing, especially if it has anything to do with water,
which everything pretty much does. I give John credit for trying to help these
tadpoles grow up, at least then they can burrow into the ground and sit there until it
rains again or whatever.

And if you want to grow a garden you have to
make it a chicken-wire prison on all sides AND underneath, otherwise the rabbits
and squirrels and gophers go for the green when everything else is just dead or dry
grass. The only time we had anything CLOSE to a flower garden is the El Nino year
when it rained so much there was water in the stream year-round. Even then we
only got a few flowers before the squirrels decided to ‘taste’ the stalks, leaving a lot
of flower heads just laying there uneaten. (I have fake flowers in a pot outside now
for color – it’s the only thing to do.)

*Sigh* – I think I’ve had enough of this
silly so-called “environment”!