Every spring a group of us neighborhood kids would venture out to the "gravel pit" area. Geneva Rock once had a gravel operation set up, and as our name so eloquently suggested, the remaining ground was indeed a pit, though little gravel remained. The spring thaw and rains would leave large, deep puddles on the clay soil; soil that seemed completely devoid of any porous attributes since everything that once offered drainage had been removed from it. The puddles stayed for weeks, until they finally evaporated, leaving behind large concave cracked sheets of silty clay.
Beginning a week or two after the puddles formed, and running until they dissolved was what we referred to as pollywoggin' season.
We'd gather up the necessary supplies and be on our way. Big buckets, check; a few old towels, check; Mom's colander or kitchen sieve (preferably without her knowing), check; and if we could get our hands on them, old window screens. Old window screens were for the serious pollywogger.
At the puddles edge we unlaced our shoes, slipped out of our bright white socks, and rolled up our pant legs. (How our poor mothers put up with this, I'm not sure.) We'd sink our toes into the oozy tan mud and wade our way into the puddle. We had to carefully feel with our toes before we stepped completely down; the water was such a murky opaque tan that there was no way of seeing what you were about to step on. Each step made a great squelching sound flanked beginning and end by the splashing of water. We could feel the plethora of pollywogs tickling against our legs as they swam...at least we hoped they were all pollywogs. We did see a few water snakes on occasion though, but to the best of our knowledge, none of them were poisonous.
Once we had reached an acceptable spot in the puddle we'd dip Mom's colander, sieve, or the old window screen into the murky water, lift it, and watch the water drain until we were left with lots of plump wriggling pollywogs. The window screen had a lot more surface area and usually caught more of the slimy little buggers per dip than a colander did. We'd get overly excited anytime we caught one that was extra large or had already began to grow legs. Then we'd make our way back to shore and dump the pollywogs into our catch buckets filled with the opaque water.
Once we had caught a satisfying amount of the larval amphibians we'd dry off the best we could with the old towels, put our now-not-so-bright-white socks back on, lace our mud covered shoes up and carry our catch buckets back home. The next few weeks were spent watching our tadpoles morph into little Woodhouse toads. We fed the tadpoles flaked goldfish food and whatever they found in their murky water. Yeah, not their natural diet I'm sure, but it kept them alive and seemingly healthy for a tadpole. Once they were toads they were a little trickier to feed. We'd usually set most of them free and keep a few select toads as "pets". We'd put our terrarium of toads underneath our large outside light at night and watch them feed on the earthward spiraling bugs that had flown around the light for too long. Then eventually they'd be set free too (or they'd escape the terrerium once they could jump high enough). Every once in a while we would find a large adult toad in our backyard and we couldn't help but wonder if it had been one of our pollywogs.
2 comments:
OH MY GOSH! I love that you wrote about this. I was laughing so hard thinking of how our mothers handled this. I don't know if I'd do so well. Once, Lindsey, Karley and I dug the most massive hole in my parents backyard to fill it with pollywogs. Ya, my parents weren't so happy about that one.
Remember Alex Anderson and the rusty nail she stepped on? I think that must have ended the pollywog era, or the building of a church; I can't really remember.
That was one fantastic area tho. Sledding in the winter and pollywoggin in the summer. :)
Good times!! going to the Pollywog pond was one of my favorite things...thanks for sharing, I think it's so fun that you are doing this!
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