I’m getting pretty good at catching bullfrogs. Number 4 moved in a few weeks ago. Not quite full size yet. With the discovery of the little yellow-bellied-slider, which we’d like to keep as a pet, I was concerned that a bullfrog might eat him while still small.

Bullfrogs are real pests and bad for almost everything alive around them their size or smaller. I put him in a plastic bag in the refrigerator to let him slip into a permanent hibernative state. I’ve tried this before, and it didn’t work this time either. Sure enough a scream from the garage. Kelly thought it was a dog yelping. Nope. Kathy had found a Belk’s bag in the refrigerator and wondered what was in it. As she started to untie it, the bag moved. That’s when she yelped like a dog.

I let the chilly bullfrog go in the storm drain, as I did with #3. He hopped in just fine.

I’ve tried planting flowering vines many times, typically around a mailbox, and it seems like I always end up with some strands of sticks and wilted leaves. Typically we would get a few flowers associated with the original buds never to see flowers again.

Three years ago, I planted a vine on our neighbor’s old fence, hoping it would be an improvement over the honey suckle and mulberry vines. I was somewhat heartened that it did not totally die after the first year and that we got about 3 or 4 flowers the following year. The vine spent last summer growing, and this spring I was happy to count over 20 buds. I sprayed the vine with anti-fungal + anti-insect spray to give the buds the best chance. Kathy and I have observed it takes three years to get most things established and growing.

  
The shed that Grant built is in the background. I called him on April 1 to tell him it had burned down.

Nicole is in the shipping business. One of her customers gave her a giant acorn. It is from a Bur Oak. She mailed it to us with instructions to plant it in a pot to get it growing, and then transfer it outdoors. (Being in the shipping business, she thinks nothing of mailing a giant acorn.) The leaves on this tree will be up to a foot long. They seem to be very popular in Texas.

I’ll plant it next to the mailbox and see if Kathy notices.

The dogs enjoyed another Bullfrog Catch (#3) a few weeks back. Today they got to help out with a Water Snake catch. Approaching the pond, I saw a snake slide into the water from a bush that hangs over the edge. I tried catching him with a net, but he was able to slide into the muck I stirred up. About an hour later, the snake was back out and up in the bush. This time I was careful not to stir up the bottom, and I caught him. The dogs were delighted. The smelly secretion a water snake uses for defense was so fun for Stout, he rubbed in it. (Yuck!)

He had a thick buldge a little over half way down. Some kind of dinner. None of the colorful fish were missing, but it is hard to count the fish we have from the lake because they blend in. Hope it wasn’t a baby bird.

Claire and I dropped the snake into the storm drain and watched him slither down the pipe towards the creek where he may hook up with the Bullfrog. (Kathy does not allow me to kill the Bullfrogs.)

Kathy, Kelly, Claire, and I headed out early this morning for a stop at Waffle House and to get the two girls’ passports. (Both parents have to appear at the application office.) I spotted a small bird next to the neighbor’s mailbox. It looked large enough to hop, but too small to fly. Suddenly the mother bird landed on top of the mailbox with a worm in its mouth. Kathy exclaimed, “It’s a blue bird!” We don’t see them very often, but we have seen them more near our house this year.

I proposed we catch the baby and keep it in a bird cage until he gets big enough to let go. Kathy thought it would be better to let the mother take care of it. So off we went on our trip for waffles and passports. When we returned, the girls went looking for the baby blue bird, but they could not find it.

Later in the day, Kathy spotted an exploded pile of down feathers, some with the unmistakable bright blue, next to the neighbor’s fence. It looked as if a cat (or maybe Stout?) had caught the baby bird. I then noticed a lot of the feathers on top of a fence post above the pile. I think a hawk or owl caught the baby bird blue bird, which would explain the exploded pile of feathers around and on top of the fence post.

Poor baby blue bird. May be destined to be bones on paper.

Walter Reeves has two recommendations for a shady, evergreen hedge. He suggested mixing a Bright ‘N Tight Cherry Laurel with Wax Myrtle.

How do you find out about a fat green caterpillar on the internet?

I found it in five minutes, by typing in “Identify Caterpillar”… Dad searched for 15 minutes.

Identifying caterpillars

Scroll down to “Polyphemus Moth.”

Back in May I wrote about catching and relocating a bullfrog from our little pond. This led to some conversation about how bullfrogs eat everything they can get their huge mouths around and are environmental pests. Carol denied that bullfrogs eat fish (which is why I think our goldfish disappear at times.) I posted this article that says they not only eat fish but birds, too!

I did not mention there was a much younger and smaller little brother who I thought could do little damage. He got bigger, and fish started disappearing again last month. He was a much harder catch. He jumped much more randomly and proved too difficult to sneak up on at night. I spotted him on some rocks in the day while working in the yard, so I snuck around a bush with a net and caused him to jump away from the water instead of towards it. After a few minutes, Stout and I trapped him!

I asked Mary Claire if she wanted to pick him up. (I didn’t want to!) She ran off and came back with some work gloves. Stout had a fit.

Caution! Only zoom in on these pictures if you dare! They scared Nicole.

Note: We let him go down in the storm drain where he was free to hop under the street and go live in a creek.

A cool front came through. Clyde was very happy to wake up to play in 59 degrees in August. Makes yard work more attractive.