a small (very small) tragedy
Jul. 14th, 2008 07:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fruzicleLast January or something I splurged $2.99 at the nursery and bought a new pet: a bullfrog tadpole.
"Totally cool!" coursed through my easily entertained brain.
Strangely, the tadpole didn't really develop nearly as quickly as I imagined. For weeks at a time I would think that it had dissolved into the slime of the 3 cubic foot box it lived in on the front porch. It's a very nice, though modest, plastic planter box. It even sports a papyrus plant (1) and a horse tail (1). The only disadvantage is that the tank suffers the extremes of temperature from being out front in the sun.
One day Eric decided to use his hand to clear something out of that tank. Freaking out, he ran in to ask me what the heck I had in that tank. The waters were so murky with green fuzzy plant material that it truly was a mystery as to what dwelled therein. " A tadpole," I calmly replied. "About three inches long."
"Yuck!!" he rejoined.
Since I rarely glimpsed it, when I saw it yesterday I called over O to see it. "It's awfully still," I thought. But better not to disturb it. It might swim back to the depths and I wouldn't see it again any time soon.
"It's awfully quiet," he commented. "I think it's dead." He scooped it out and sure enough, it was dead. "Oh look," he said. "It's got little paws."
Now I have never thought of tadpole legs as paws, but there you have it. A young tadpole, struck down in the prime of development. Dead with two hind legs never meant to see the firmness of earth.
O, being a pragmatist, delivered the two legged creature from the front yard tank to the backyard chicken. The chicken had no hesitation about dealing with the erstwhile tadpole.
In a day or so, we will eat the resulting egg, thus completing the cycle of life. I never really thought a tadpole would figure in my dietary plan, but there you have it.
And I don't suppose the tadpole ever considered that its short six months of life were preparing it, not to become a glorious, manly, deep-voiced bullfrog, but to end up as an egg. A chicken egg. But there you have it.
"Totally cool!" coursed through my easily entertained brain.
Strangely, the tadpole didn't really develop nearly as quickly as I imagined. For weeks at a time I would think that it had dissolved into the slime of the 3 cubic foot box it lived in on the front porch. It's a very nice, though modest, plastic planter box. It even sports a papyrus plant (1) and a horse tail (1). The only disadvantage is that the tank suffers the extremes of temperature from being out front in the sun.
One day Eric decided to use his hand to clear something out of that tank. Freaking out, he ran in to ask me what the heck I had in that tank. The waters were so murky with green fuzzy plant material that it truly was a mystery as to what dwelled therein. " A tadpole," I calmly replied. "About three inches long."
"Yuck!!" he rejoined.
Since I rarely glimpsed it, when I saw it yesterday I called over O to see it. "It's awfully still," I thought. But better not to disturb it. It might swim back to the depths and I wouldn't see it again any time soon.
"It's awfully quiet," he commented. "I think it's dead." He scooped it out and sure enough, it was dead. "Oh look," he said. "It's got little paws."
Now I have never thought of tadpole legs as paws, but there you have it. A young tadpole, struck down in the prime of development. Dead with two hind legs never meant to see the firmness of earth.
O, being a pragmatist, delivered the two legged creature from the front yard tank to the backyard chicken. The chicken had no hesitation about dealing with the erstwhile tadpole.
In a day or so, we will eat the resulting egg, thus completing the cycle of life. I never really thought a tadpole would figure in my dietary plan, but there you have it.
And I don't suppose the tadpole ever considered that its short six months of life were preparing it, not to become a glorious, manly, deep-voiced bullfrog, but to end up as an egg. A chicken egg. But there you have it.
