Building A Greenhouse In A Pool: Frog Rescue

Last week, Pat and I slopped through 5 inches of sediment  (pine needles, leaves, twigs, and raccoon bones) sitting on the bottom of our defunct pool. In the days before, Pat pumped out the stagnant water, which was coated in a green skin of algae. 

All that was left was about 6 inches of water in the deep end that happened to be occupied by an entire pool’s worth of frogs and polliwogs. Standing in our rubber boots with a bucket by our side and an awkwardly long pool net in hand, we chased and caught frogs. We followed air bubbles and scooped up large polliwogs. We flung dark muck and scum in every direction. We splished and splashed with the frogs, doing our best to convince them to leave their changing home. 

I was transported to the Summers of my childhood where we would catch buckets of frogs of all sizes with our bare hands. I tried using my hands – hoping my muscle memory would come through, and I sorely failed. We eventually found a froggy rhythm with a net and a shovel, and  eventually we filled a bucket with jumpy frogs and squirmy polliwogs, which we released in the cool nearby creek. 

The frogs leaped out of the bucket like firecrackers, and the polliwogs swam furiously away. I worried about the water being too cold for them and the creek current too strong, but after two buckets of frog releases, I walked the creek with my nephew Herbie. I was happy to see frogs leaping from muddy banks pocked with frog condominiums or miniature cave dwellings. 

Frogs teach us about the medicine of water and its cleansing effects. Frog is also about metamorphosis and creative change, and for me, it’s about being sensitive to the environment. Frog in an indicator of the healthy of an environment, since its skin is more permeable and more easily affected. For this reason, frogs can be associated with emotions. My favorite froggy connection is to the Great Goddess of Old Europe, where frogs were seen as a power of regeneration. 

In any event, our frog rescue mission was a fun adventure to mark Summer’s end and to welcome the new season as well as the advancement of the pool to greenhouse conversion!