I just spent the last three hours relocating hundreds upon hundreds of squiggly little tadpoles. Earlier, I mentioned that a mother frog had laid her eggs in this large puddle created by the flooding the East Coast had two weeks ago. Well, it's been hot and sunny, and that large puddle is now a muddy little hole, and all the tadpoles were piled atop each other and beginning to dry out. Yesterday, I dumped 5 gallons of water into the hole until I could get enough supplies to move them. When I went back today, the water had all turned to mud, and in certain patches, was just covered in gleaming black tadpoles and their shiny, golden bellies.

Dixie helped for the first hour, and we just shoveled bucketfuls of mud into our pails, hiking to and from the creek that runs about 200 ft away. We'd come back with fresh water to create a ditch. For the second two hours, I picked through clump after clump of mud to find all the live ones. I found quite a lot still alive, but sadly, many had died. Finally, I drained the ditch into my bucket to get the last of the ones that were visible. If I had to estimate the amount of tadpoles, I'd say there were about one thousand, about half of which survived the trip to the stream. I know there's no possible way I got them all, but I would estimate that I got 4/5ths or so. Finally, I widened the ditch with a shovel and poured two bucketfuls of fresh water in, so hopefully any more live ones can make their way there. And I'm gonna pray for rain.

As for the live ones, they found a nice calm part where the current wasn't strong, and they seem to be resting. I myself got terribly muddy, just covered in the stuff. I've got a few more bug bites, a few more scrapes-- the bank was a little steep, and at one point, I tripped and fell in. I'm lucky I didn't break my wrist on the rocks. But all's well that ends well-- I came home for a fabulous shower and scoured myself clean.

As for tonight-- I'm gonna light some candles, watch Practical Magic, fix myself a little dinner, and top it off with fresh homemade whipped cream with blackberries, raspberries, and blueberries. Sweet.