Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow

Meet Anna. She's a cutie, I know. According to my five and a half year-old her name is pronounced Ah-na, with the emphasis on the first syllable. (He's very particular and I know you'd want to get it right.) We caught her and four of her siblings (named Le-le, Lu-lu, Fi-fi, and Nemo) at the pond in front of Mission Point Resort back in early June. The pond use to be part of a small cove years ago, but when the lake levels dropped it was cut off from the lake and the pond was born. It was loaded with tadpoles this spring.

Anna's a big grown-up frog now, tail almost gone, breathing air and ready to live on her own.

Don't worry, we'll still be keeping tabs on her. She's only moving into our neighbor's pond. We'll be able to visit her anytime we want. And when we can't find her because, of course, her chances of survival aren't that good, I've got my reasons all ready: she's taking a little rest, she's visiting friends over in the garden, she's off looking for yummy bugs for [insert meal name here], and my personal favorite - she's playing hide and seek with us!)

Soon, it will be time for her sisters to join her. To be honest, we didn't sex the tadpoles so we don't know they are girls; we aren't even sure what species they are. It's just that in my son's eyes if it doesn't have very visible penis, it must be a girl. Makes sense to me. (I wish I had known that male frogs don't have penises when we had that discussion - I would have liked to hear my son's response. Perhaps we'll discuss it at dinner tonight.)

Good luck little frog. We've enjoyed getting to know you...