… because they are amphibians and reptiles.

There is a depression behind site 4. If it rains enough, it fills with water. When we got here, it was pretty full, but it dried up to mud. We realized there were tadpoles in it about week two, so we stopped by a few times a week to check for legs. Alabama is in a drought, so their pool dried up. We toted 8 gallons of water for two days to try to keep them alive. The first time we added water, some of them swam away. At least some of them were alive at the time.

We have not seen them since, but it did rain. We put a dish washing bucket under the gutter to catch the air conditioner condensation. This let us add another ten or twelve gallons of rain water. It might not be enough, but at least we tried. It can take three to four months for tadpoles to develop, so it will be out of our hands soon. With the rain today, the puddle had some visitors.

This one is probably a Southern Leopard Frog, and not a Poison Arrow Frog. This frog showed up in the later afternoon.

This is probably a harmless Common Watersnake, and not a venomous Copperhead snake. It was small at maybe a foot long, and it did not show up until the evening. Kate shined a flashlight on it … from a long way away.

John tried to get Kate to take a selfie with the snake, but she refused.

Remember, even if you think it is harmless, you should not handle the snake or lick the frog. Leave that to the professionals.

After the rain, the pool is almost full. Using google and some guesstimates, it is probably somewhere between 200 and 500 gallons, and 50 gallons of that was hand delivered by us!

We do not yet know if any tadpoles survived. We think we saw a fish in the water with the snake. We might have saved them from being tadpole jerky just to make them snake bait.

We saw something small and dark move in the water. We are not yet sure whether it was a fish, tadpole, or beetle.