Emergency lawnmowing (mind you, is there any other kind?)
I’m never one to choose a gardening job before some other (unless it’s to do with the pond).
So last night’s lawn mowing had nothing to do with keeping up appearances and everything to do with an impending frog emergency.
The reason – baby frogs are imminent.
Katy and I found at least 3 fully formed baby frogs yesterday; so-called ‘metamorphs’ – because they have metamorphosed from their aquatic form to begin their land-based lives.
They are of course utterly cute – but more seriously last year we had a real panic at emergence time when the baby frogs came out and headed for the long grass – which meant the whole of the lawn!
Because once they were out there, and lurking in that long grass (their favoured spot) that was the end of lawn mowing, unless we wanted a large supply of frog mince.
And the other thing I will be much more careful of this year is any buckets of water: young frogs are very good at climbing into buckets of water but they are very bad at climbing out again.
Last year quite a few drowned in our experimental buckets. This year I will make sure I keep them out.
