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Home Education Magazine
September-October 1998 - Columns
Notes from a Homeschooling Dad - Jeff Kelety
Of Ponds and Tadpoles
I bent down and peered through the murky, amber-colored pond water. One, two, three, four of them. There, behind that tuft of grass in the back, there's three more. I counted twelve in all, twelve very much alive tadpoles wriggling silently in the shallow, alien depths of their new home - the kids' goldfish bowl. I can't remember what fate its former residents met up with. But now it was the temporary home to these delicate, beady-eyed amphibious transplants. Their presence in our home that day was the end result of Myles and Josh's muddy incursion in our friend's forest pond.
"And I'm supposed to do what with these life forms?" I inquired of my wife Deborah after concluding my brief biological survey.
"Well, they'll need someplace large enough so that the kids can watch them grow into frogs. Can't you make some kind of a pond or something?"
It was as simple as that, the kind of spontaneous event that instantly and irrevocably alters one's plans for the day, if not the entire weekend. Like Moses after the burning bush incident or Baghera the panther upon stumbling into Mowgli in the Jungle Book series, thus is the mantle of care meted out. And one does not simply walk away or otherwise abdicate responsibility for the welfare of fellow organisms so neatly and clearly delegated. I looked back at my new charges and sighed, putting to rest any thought of an afternoon's paddle on Mystery Bay. Twelve small, ectothermic lives now rested squarely on my shoulders. The former woodland home that nature had so elegantly and effortlessly wrought for these most fragile of God's creatures I must now re- create in our kitchen.
"Some kind of a pond or something." I mulled this over as I carefully moved the goldfish bowl and its nervous inhabitants out of harm's way. How to go about such an effort? I thought back to the many frog and salamander exhibits I had seen over the years - interesting and diverse presentations representing specimens from throughout the world. No doubt these facilities retained highly trained specialists - Masters and Ph.D. recipients who were intimately acquainted with the delicate ecological balance required of frog habitations. Then, too, there were elements of visual access to consider so the kids could easily monitor the Devonian metamorphous from fish to frog. Clearly these were matters for proper study and consideration. This naturally would take time. But with so many slithering, slimy larval bodies competing for a dwindling supply of oxygen, I was not to be afforded the leisure of amphibian habitat research.
In the end I settled on a simple plan, at least one that seemed simple at the time. I would fashion my pond out of the 10- gallon aquarium we acquired for last year's foray into amphibian study. That summer Deb and the boys corralled a fat clump of frog eggs, or what we thought were frog eggs. The eggs were carefully deposited at the bottom of the aquarium with sufficient pond water to keep them submerged. Each day the children diligently regarded the gelatinous clump in hopes of catching a glimpse of newborn tadpoles as they broke free from their embryonic enclosures. However, after nearly two weeks of daily observation nothing more emerged from our primordial brew than an increasingly ripe stench. So in the end, the experiment was abandoned. Hypotheses abounded as to why the eggs failed to hatch. Maybe they were salamanders. Maybe we didn't wait long enough. Maybe they weren't eggs at all; maybe it was just a bunch of pond gunk. When at last all the conjecture had subsided, I was left to dispose of the "pond gunk" and clean the tank.
To return to matters at hand, what I decided was needed first in my frog habitat was some method for creating both pond and shore. For soon after hatching I was reasonably certain the nascent tetrapods would be itching to make for higher ground to test their new legs. The solution was to be found in the garden. A mixture of rocks I had culled from the new spring beds and a few handfuls of sand from Emma's sandbox would put me in business. Simulating the activity of plate tectonics over the eons, I created gently sloping beach and shorelines out of rocks placed strategically at each end of the tank. Then I covered the tank floor and rocky slopes with a layer of sand and voila - instant pond topography. Next I ladled in just enough pond water to submerge all but the ends of the tank, which remained as beach. Toss in a few clumps of pond grass and I had what I thought was a pretty authentic frog milieu. Now all that was left was to transfer the tadpoles from bowl to tank. This was accomplished with only The wet, squirming creatures being ignominiously dropped on the floor.
Deb and the kids were called in to regard the tadpoles' new home. Noses were eagerly pressed to glass as Myles, Josh and Emma strained to see the dark, wriggling shapes in the still settling muddy waters. I stood off to one side, silently congratulating myself on a job well done. I had overcome my baser instincts and had risen to the higher, nobler calling of homeschooling father, ready at a moment's notice to cast aside personal achievement for the opportunity to provide my children with valuable life experiences. It was Emma who bore the bad tidings that woke me from my spell of self-adulation. "Daddy, daddy," she cried, pointing to one corner of the tank, "the frog pond has a waterfall." And it was true. My jaw must have dropped visibly as I saw that indeed the ten- dollar, ten-gallon tank, new home to transforming life, had sprung a leak. It wasn't exactly a waterfall, more like a trickle. But the steady flow of murky, brown water winding its way slowly but surely from the bottom corner of the tank, across the tabletop and down to an ever expanding puddle on the kitchen floor left no room for doubt. Unless soon remedied, we were headed for an amphibian disaster the likes of which our household had never witnessed before. It was not a comforting thought. But then again, neither was the thought of all the effort it would take to prevent such carnage. I might as well sell the kayaks altogether, for I was quite certain I would not be tripping about the placid waters of Admiralty Inlet any time soon. Maybe public schools weren't all that bad an idea.
Heroes are not born; the gods do not endow them with any special character traits that set them apart from other mortals. A hero is simply someone who does the right thing at moments of personal decision. And so at last I summoned up the courage to do what needed to be done. The room had since grown quiet as Deb and the kids had left for their next venue. It was just me and the tadpoles and a watery mess that was beginning to overtake the kitchen. One by one I began to fish the terrified creatures out of their would-be tomb. This was not nearly as straightforward as putting them in there in the first place. The fresh sand had produced heavy sediment that had had no time to settle and after the first few swipes of the net, my quarry was all but hidden in the shallow mire that resulted. It was a half an hour before I could locate the last of the twelve animals by tipping the tank up slightly on its side, thereby leaving the poor thing high and dry, flopping helplessly on the sandy floor of the pond's north beach.
Right back where they started, Myles and Josh's biological specimens along with their rapidly deteriorating clumps of pond grass were once again safe, if not somewhat ruffled, in the goldfish bowl atop the kitchen counter.
I will spare recounting the details of my having removed all the carefully placed rocks, sand and pond water. Suffice it to say that after no small passage of time, the tank was cleared, cleaned, dried and recaulked with an aging, but still sufficiently supple tube of clear silicon. There was, of course, no alternative to repairing the tank myself since the only pet store in town had gone bankrupt some months earlier, probably the result of supplying leaky aquariums to unsuspecting parents.
The next day after waiting the requisite 24 hours for the caulk to dry, I carefully tested the tank for leaks. Gratefully there were none and it was a good thing. For had the repair not held the first time, I am sure, instructive though they were, the tadpoles would have ended up in the ready-made pond in our downstairs bathroom. With no trace of their disappearance save the faintly echoing sounds of water rushing down the drain, it would remain a mystery never to be solved. After the leak test proved successful, however, the entire pond construction process was repeated, including the dropped tadpole. I could only hope it wasn't the same one as the day before. Deb and the kids were then ushered back into the kitchen to once again christen the frog pond. And though Emma was somewhat disappointed at the absence of the waterfall, noses were soon pressed against the glass as the rapidly evolving tadpoles made their way rather contentedly about the new "pond."
In such a dubious fashion did we begin what turned out to be a fine adventure in witnessing first hand the miracle of biological transformation. In less than two weeks time, most of our former "fish" were now fully functioning tetrapods, hopping frenetically about on the pond's northern and southern beaches. The intervening time provided the perfect opportunity for us to observe tails disappear, legs sprout, sensory organs develop and bold green and black markings appear. What an amazing process it is that nature has devised for the development of its organisms, from tadpole to frog, caterpillar to butterfly, zygote to adult human. And all these miracles are there, to be regarded and savored, our noses pressed to the glass, the result of everyday heroics.
But be advised. If you wish to enter into this fascinating realm of morphogenic study, don't forget a lid for your pond, lest you find yourself quite unexpectedly, as did I, sharing your morning tea eyeball-to-eyeball with several very curious amphibians.
© 1998 Jeff Kelety
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