Oh Horton, you are so funny. I've got the picture in my mind. LOL. We had such a rare cold winter that I told one of the girls at work that when the temps hit 50 I'd wear a bikini and I'm cold-natured enough as it is. It is sad to lose some, but that is nature doing her thing. Thank you. Jenny, I am glad you enjoyed them. I did the same thing and poured through hundreds of pictures. The thing I liked best is every pond is different and as is their flair for ponding. And I have gotten so much great advice. I had really been really picky about the rocks I wanted, like just certain colors, shapes, whatnot. While I am far from finishhed, I am happy with the looks of it so far. I think the best thing you can do to avoid the necklace look, is to vary the sizes of the rocks. You will get the necklace look when you first start out, but it will go away when you start stacking. Now I am lookiing for inspiration for landscaping OUTSIDE the pond myself. You all have a wonderful day.

Very nice pixs of frogs n' toads, earlybird! I love our native amphibs here. Oh, and I have a frog story to share.... I had one of those hideous Cuban frogs get into my bedroom one night about two weeks ago. There was a small gap in the screen frame (fixed now) and he somehow squeezed in. I was woken to the sound of a thud on my wall, another thud on the second wall, and then "SPLAT!!!" the little !#$*!!! jumped to the ceiling, missed, and landed on ME. I shall not share the location of the landing zone. *G* This was about one in the morning. I was NOT amused. At all. My cats were going nuts, but I managed to grab the pasty white ghost frog, go out into the back yard barefooted, whereby I almost immediately stepped in dog poop. I flung the hideous thing like a major league outfielder and it landed in the middle of the lake. I hope the fish pecked at him for a really lonnnnnggggg time. Oh I do hate those evil things. When I was down south working for the vet in Jensen Beach we used to tell people to put them (both Cuban and Bufo) in a freezer bag and freeze them to death, so that might be an option for the more squeamish.

He tells me they are a toad, not a frog, all though I don't know the difference. Check the link below, colokid, as well as this one: How to tell the difference between frogs and toads I have always associated frogs with lakes or ponds, while toads were more of a dry land amphibian, but I think I have been mistaken! I wish I had toads in my garden, but with three mini-Dachshunds and a Shepherd/Malamute mix of my own, plus the neighborhood cats, no such luck. I've never actually seen one around here, but I used to have garter snakes in my garden, but if they are still around, they keep themselves well hidden. :-( Holly Here is a link that might be useful: Frogs vs Toads

A few days/weeks after some heavy rain, you often see hundreds if not thousands of tiny toadlets or froglets metamorphosing and coming out of their pond/puddle all at once. They are probably true toads (genus Anaxyrus) or Spadefoot Toads (genus Scaphiopus). Beyond that, toadlets are hard to identify.