My little free library got a short article in the print version of Adventure Journal.

 

A large earthquake (measured by the USGS as 5.2) and several strong aftershocks struck Anza in the wee hours of the morning on Friday, June 10. The epicenter was about 4 miles from my place, which means the epicenter was about 4 miles from the PCT. My home itself wasn’t damaged, but a few items were, including my Pulaski ornament presented by Bob at the 2016 PCT Anza Work Event.

I will recon the trail in the area to check for landslides.

I am so enamored with the way my watering hole has sprung to life, I decided to add a second one closer to the trail. A spent a good part of the day setting up the liner and adding 72 gallons of water. I took a couple water lettuce plants from my other pond (with a few tadpoles attached) to see how it develops in the next few weeks, before adding fish.

My watering hole is now alive with hundreds of wiggling toad tadpoles.

You can’t tell from this video, but the mosquito fish have also reproduced and populated the “pond” with dozens of baby fish.

I wrote several weeks ago about how two toads were mating in the small pond I set up on my property near the trail as a wildlife watering hole.

Well, the long wait is over. Towards the beginning of the week, I could easily see strands of toad eggs.

And, by late Sunday, there were hundreds of tiny tadpoles squirming their way into existence.

So, new life begins. I quickly read up on what tadpoles eat, and was reminded that … they eat algae. — Perfect! No need to buy exotic tadpole food at my local Petco.

I sat transfixed, watching the little critters make their first preliminary wiggles, just as I was so many years ago when my sisters and I would go to the local creek at Blackwelder’s Farm to catch frog eggs and watch them develop in a fish bowl in our bedroom, returning them to the creek when they started growing legs. I was magically transported back in time and was happy to feel this connection again with my 10-year-old self.