When I was a child I desperately wanted a dog and a pony. It was pretty much an obsession, but my mother always said no (thus my disturbing over compensation now. See, it really is all my mother's fault). My dreams squashed at every turn I sought alternative pets. I was thinking about this while I was watching a big bull frog on my goldfish pond today. I frequently brought home frogs and toads and snakes, baby birds and pretty much anything I could catch. It was a while before I learned that some things were better left in the ponds and forests where they belonged. It was a hard lesson.
One of my favorite places to hunt was Wintergreen Gorge, that backed a cemetery of that name. It was a five mile bike ride from my house. Once there I would go through the cemetery to the gorge itself, behind the small chapel. I'm pretty sure no one is allowed to go there any more. It was a very steep climb down to the river that ran through the gorge. Multiple people had fallen and died even back then, but I and the occasional friend who accompanied me just found the climb fun. We would anchor ourselves with wild grape vines and inch our way down, using select trees to stop us from falling. Once down we would wade in the shallow water or swim in the deeper pools. It was a quiet, beautiful place to spend an afternoon. One memorable day I discovered a small pool filled with tiny black tadpoles. True to my nature I had brought along collecting jars in my back pack. I must have caught 200 of them. The climb back up was really hard carrying glass jars full of tadpoles but I made it and biked the five miles back home. Once there my long suffering mom asked me what I intended to do with 200 tadpoles. Well, I planned on keeping them. She reasonably asked what they ate. That was a bit of a problem. I figured they ate "things in the water". Exactly what that was I wasn't too sure. Still reasonable, she asked me if I thought it was fair to cram them in jars away from their home. By the next morning I was feeling sort of guilty about the poor things all crammed in my jars, so nobly, I decided to do the right thing. I carefully re-packed my back pack and set off to return the tadpoles to their natural environment. Five miles later I was back to Wintergreen Gorge. As I rode through the gates I noticed the large pond near the front gate. Thinking about how long it would take to climb back down to the creek in the gorge I decided to let the tadpoles loose in the pond. It was much nicer than the almost puddle I had taken them from, (and I reasoned I would get home a lot sooner) so I threw my bike down on the neat lawn around the pond and got out my jars. Feeling virtuous and noble returning the future frogs to nature, I uncapped the lids and dumped my babies into the pond.
It took ten seconds for every single one of them to be eaten by the fish that swarmed this sudden free meal.
I DID NOT EXPECT THAT.
Didn't feel quite so virtuous going home, but I never again took 200 tadpoles from their puddle again either.
