I went out around 7:00 p.m. tonight to water some of my plants. It is very dry in mid Missouri. while I was watering a plant, a 2 ft. red-sided garter snake crawled up beside me. I thought he might be wanting a little water, so I slowly moved the stream of water toward it. It didn't pay any attention to it until the water touched him and he took off under a bush. A few minutes later, I went to the temporary pool I built this Spring to see what frogs were around it. While I was standing there waiting for the frogs to come back to the surface, the garter snake crawled up in front of me and scared a small leopard frog. The garter snake took out after the frog, but missed it. It then took a long drink from the pool and then crawled along the edge into some vegetation. All of a sudden another garter snake about the same size darts into the water near where the other one was. I watched them for a few minutes and then left.

Water has been in this pool for a little less than 3 months and it has already produced at least two batches of gray tree frogs, attracted several green, bull, and leopard frogs. Last week a large three toed box turtle would crawl into the pool every evening. I haven't seen it the last few days, so maybe it is aestivating. It was 100 degrees today.