We have had a serious escalation at our house in the War on Stuff -- Tom got a dumpster which is now occupying our driveway. He's been working on both the basement and the accessary stuff collection we have off site. I have yet to make any substantive contribution to this but I do have good intentions.
One evening (when I had neither a camera nor my phone with me) I actually saw the frog. It was grayish-green, and only about two inches long, immobile and silent on a nearly submerged cardboard box. I ran to the door and called Iain to come out and see it, but of course it was no longer there when I got back.
Now this is not the only collection of water on our street that really isn't supposed to be there; where the basement of the apartments used to be, there's a deep depression that -- depending on the amount of rain we've had recently -- has more or less water in it. At the moment there's lots of water there; I took the picture above yesterday afternoon. This has been there ever since the apartments were demolished, and there's an equally noisy resident frog there, too. I've never seen it, but I hear it often in the evening when I'm walking the dog. It usually seems to be coming from the vegetation at the edge of the pond, rather than from the pond; that's outside the frame of this photo, on the left. But it's the same sound as from our dumpster, and on a nice evening, I would hear the dumpster frog all the way to the middle of the block, and then -- like a pinging cell phone tower -- there would be a handoff to the pond frog.
A couple weeks ago Tom hooked up an aquarium pump and some plastic tubing and drained the dumpster. After that, we didn't hear the frog any more. I hoped it had just moved on to a wetter place and not become bird food.
The pond is likely to history, soon, too -- first the pile of rock and the utility locating markings appeared, and then the pile of large pipes, and then last weekend this piece of equipment. At least as of yesterday afternoon, nothing had happened yet but I am sure it will be soon, and then I expect the pond and the pond frog will be gone.
Since Tom drained the dumpster, it has rained more. And the frog is back.
Addendum from May 25: Not a very good photo, but here he is.
The dumpster is inclined downward, like the driveway, and soon after we got it there was a foot or so of rainwater accumulated in the lowermost edge. It became clear over the following days that the dumpster had become home to a really loud frog. We only heard it in the evening, and I don't know for a fact that the frog was a permanent 24 hour resident or just showed up in the evening, like a musician in a subway station. You can hear it -- but not see it -- in this video (I don't know how to make an audio recording on my phone, but I do know how to take video, which is what I did, even though it was dark).
One evening (when I had neither a camera nor my phone with me) I actually saw the frog. It was grayish-green, and only about two inches long, immobile and silent on a nearly submerged cardboard box. I ran to the door and called Iain to come out and see it, but of course it was no longer there when I got back.
Now this is not the only collection of water on our street that really isn't supposed to be there; where the basement of the apartments used to be, there's a deep depression that -- depending on the amount of rain we've had recently -- has more or less water in it. At the moment there's lots of water there; I took the picture above yesterday afternoon. This has been there ever since the apartments were demolished, and there's an equally noisy resident frog there, too. I've never seen it, but I hear it often in the evening when I'm walking the dog. It usually seems to be coming from the vegetation at the edge of the pond, rather than from the pond; that's outside the frame of this photo, on the left. But it's the same sound as from our dumpster, and on a nice evening, I would hear the dumpster frog all the way to the middle of the block, and then -- like a pinging cell phone tower -- there would be a handoff to the pond frog.
The pond is likely to history, soon, too -- first the pile of rock and the utility locating markings appeared, and then the pile of large pipes, and then last weekend this piece of equipment. At least as of yesterday afternoon, nothing had happened yet but I am sure it will be soon, and then I expect the pond and the pond frog will be gone.
Addendum from May 25: Not a very good photo, but here he is.
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