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.

Considering frogs and toads very much like mosquitos and mosquito larvae as a food source, what most likely happened in Kathy Durrum's situtaion is that by introducing mosquito dunks and killing the larvae they removed the food source for the frogs which caused a large number of them to starve to death. Removing the dunks allowed the mosquito population to proliferate which then also allowed the predators of mosquitos, frogs and toads, to also proliferate. Any time you remove or reduce the amount of an animal from an environment that is a small ecosystem you're doing damage to that entire system, not just the one specific animal in it.

Frogs stay very near water, toads are more widespread since they do not need to stay near water except to have some to drink. If you've seen them at the edge of the yard, enticing them nearer shouldn't be hard. I used to get toads to stay in my yard by making little piles of rocks with crevices big enough for them to climb in. Occasionally I would find one under an unused pot (which I always leave upside-down when not in use so they don't hold any water.) I also had a huge bottom tray that I wasn't using for the pot it was supposed to be under, so I kept that filled with fresh water (change twice weekly to avoid breeding mosquitoes and algae.) I put it on the ground in the shade. Having lots of cool, moist, shady spots between and under large perennials and shrubs is attractive also. NWF has info about this, and Garden Gate magazine. A google search of toad habitat garden leads to many other articles.

day_by_day, I looked up the Southern Leopard, and found a page that said there's a frog that looks very similar to it called the Pickerel Frog. I think my little guy is a pickerel because its spots are more of a square shape than rounded like the leopard. It's one of the few poisonous frogs in the US, so hopefully instead of getting eaten by the baby garter snake I found in my yard last week, they can both help protect my veggie garden! There's a stream that runs through the back of my yard for the frog, and I just put a nice big flat rock on top of the cinder blocks today for the snake to snooze on. :-) Thanx for your help!!!