Tadpole

It’s not easy to to take a picture of a tadpole. They’re under the water and often buried in bright green algae. I felt like a little kid as I leaned over the pond following first one, then another little black dot as they flitted through the forests of algae in our once pristine pond. They were fun to watch but almost impossible to photograph.

Eventually I remembered that somewhere we had a little fish net. Searches of the shed at the top level of our garden and the pump house, where the pump and the tank for our well live, failed to turn it up. It fascinates me to peek into OilMan’s world and see neatly organized plastic bins of ingredients for fertilizer, folding chairs, trowels and clippers, various kinds of saws, rags, water treatment chemicals for the hot tub, packets of seeds, clippers, leaf blowers, shovels, irrigation equipment in its own little carryall, a small bucket and shovel too small for even the little grands....

It’s amazing how much stuff we can accumulate in a few short years and how well OilMan has kept it organized. Also surprising because in the house he is always looking for his phone, his special shirt, his shoes....I finally asked him where the fishnet was and he told me exactly where I would find it in the garage.

Despite their surprising quickness, I didn’t have much trouble catching a tadpole about the size of my thumbnail and putting him in a glass bowl so I could take a close-up of him. Not only are his developing little legs, tucked next his tail almost translucent, so, on closer inspection is his body. I think those dark spots are his brain and his vital organs...worried that I might kill him if I kept him out of his pond for too long, I took a few pictures and then released him back into the murk....

It was a privilege to be able to return to the fascination and pleasure of childhood for a few moments....