Tadpole Pool

June 15, 2011
Here is a little fact about our family: we never use our pool. Ergo, we never clean it, and so it becomes a breeding ground for all kinds of things. Bugs, algae, you name it---it's all in that green, slimy soup that is called my pool.

However, my dad randomly decided to clean out the pool this year (and I'm guessing it's because I made suggestions to change several things in the interior design of the house). So he finally took off the cover of the pool today...and underneath it were tadpoles. Lots of tadpoles.

The black object in the middle of the picture above(and if you examine more it closely, you can see the younger ones, too) is one of the many tadpoles we found in the pool. Some of them were in later stages of their life, because I saw little bitty legs on a couple of them. Other tadpoles were tinier that those with legs, so I guess they were just born.

When I observed them up close, I saw that they were surviving off the massive amounts of algae (that dark yellowish stuff) that had grown in the pool since spring started. I find their will to live in such an enclosed space and with so many other tadpoles as amazing. I didn't see any dead ones in there either (but I guess I couldn't tell either what constitutes as a dead tadpole).

 After taking up-close pictures of them on my stomach over the edge of the pool, I texted my boyfriend excitedly about them. I told him that they looked like s***m...and then we laughed on both sides of our phones.
However, he brought up a point that I had been pondering upon seeing them. It's obvious that sooner or later, those tadpoles would grow up to be frogs...therefore, I would have an army of frogs in my pool.
Also, it occurred to me that because the water in our pool was reduced by three-quarters, they would have a hard time trying to get out of the pool they were born into. The only solution I could think to help them was for me to get the bug fishing net and fling them out day by day onto the grass so they can hop away.
...which sounds both awesome (to say you did and watch) and yet dangerous (for the frogs). In any case, I hope dad decides to wait out draining the pool completely so that they can grow up properly.