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Monday, October 7, 2024

Eviction!

  Who thinks that a watering can is a perfect tiny home? Let me first tell you that I'm very fond of this watering can. It dribbles where the sprinkler head screws on, and no amount of plumbers tape or whatever seems to stop that. That annoys me, but I really love this can. It was the one my dad used for years and years in his extensive and much-cared-for vegetable garden.

But someone else liked the can so much that they moved in. I watered a plant the other day and the spout seemed clogged. When I sat it back down, something plunked into the main portion of the can. When I took a look, it scampered into the spout.
watering can


All I could see was the end of a little gray nose. I tried to shake it down, but nothing doing. So I tipped the can again as if to water something, and when I set it upright a little froggie sloshed into the water!

Well, I thought, it's happy. What do I care?

But it was still in there today. I'm not sure that enough food items wander into the watering can to sustain a hungry amphibian. So I evicted it.

It's a Dryophytes versicolor (used to be Hyla v.), a gray tree frog.
gray tree frog


Yup, it has those yellow flashes on the undersides of its legs.
gray tree frog yellow legs


Without even consulting it, I decided that eviction was prudent. It's now living out in the brush. It IS a tree frog, not a can frog.


The first link below is to a fairly cute essay I wrote about a previous gray tree frog encounter. The second link is another one that got in the house. I kept it for a few days and got to see it change from green to gray to white.

Did stuff, went to Manistee, walked maybe a quarter mile. Om was with me, and that was all he wanted to do. I got some more beautiful water pictures, but they are preempted by the froggie. Did some more stuff after we got home. That is all.

See The Reluctant Prince
See A Visitor in the Bathroom

3 comments:

Ann said...

Considering it was a squatter, I think you were clearly in your rights when you evicted him.

Sharkbytes said...

Ann- I was concerned that he might not be able to get out of the can

The Oceanside Animals said...

Java Bean: "Ayyy, at least the frog chose better than the rat who moved into Dada's barbecue grill one time! Things got unpleasantly warm for him when Dada went to use the grill. Fortunately Dada spotted him and lifted the grate up so that the rat could hotfoot it out of there before his goose was cooked ..."