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.

Yes, we do have toads in the garden - I've never come across baby ones, though. Last winter, I neglected to keep a hole in the ice over the little pond adjacent to our patio, which caused all of the larger mongrel goldfish to perish. I suspect that this provided the conditions for successful amphibian procreation. We did have a singing toad at that pond in spring, haven't noticed any since then.

Oh gee, bogturtle .... such a loss to change the name to Pickerel in my online gallery. :-) Oh well ... I especially want to have the correct names on things. I will now search my blog to see what I can update there. Probably did a post on it. Danetherton, I try not to pick up frogs and toads because of the thinness of their skin and organisms that might be on my hands. It's very hard not to but I succeed except for the occasional baby tree frog which I will put my hand up to allowing it to walk on it. My natural tendency would be to hug everything I see. I give the bees a back rub while they feed on our flowers and so far they all love it. I know they can sense fear and react to it, so that's the key. I'm in the Piedmont actually. Mountains are 45 minutes away. Bogturtle ... biology wasn't my subject when I was in high school. We had a teacher that walked around with a huge snake on his neck. Growing up in the city I was terrified of snakes and also bugs which I got from my mom screaming every time a moth flew around or a bug crawled by. Fortunately I got gradually delivered of both fears when we moved to the woods 23 years ago. Now I love all of God's Creation and it so fascinates me. I was a good student but 3rd grading period we had to do a bug collection and I was petrified and told the teacher and he told me if I didn't do it I'd fail that period. So, I failed it because there was no way ... parents understood but it left a bad taste in my mouth for biology for a long time. LOL Thank you both for the confirmation.

Hello! We installed an inground pool this year and were late getting it opened because almost every day was rainy and the concrete hadn't been poured yet. We finally took off the cover when the concrete had been scheduled so that they could pour around the pool. Anyways, when we took off the cover there were so many frogs and toads. EVERYWHERE. I have been scooping them out every day, but they just keep coming back. When the concrete had finally been poured, only the occasional frog/toad would show up, but I just found eggs everywhere. The pool won't be opened until Monday so it currently looks like a green swamp with leaves everywhere. What I'm wondering is: How do I get the eggs out before the pool company comes and cleans the pool? How will I know if I have gotten them all? I am also concerned that some of the eggs have hatched and there are tadpoles swimming below the green surface of our pool. We have a saltwater pool so we can't raise the chlorine and kill them. I just have no clue what to do and this whole post is all over the place. Thanks.