And then there's the one about the Frogs....
Those of you who knew me in 1986 heard about the frog "plague" I experienced in the condo development where I had recently purchased "waterfront" property. My particular housing tract was called Essex House and the entire planned community was named Manchester Lakes. Among the marketing propaganda produced to sell the units, were brochures with full-color photos of gorgeous lakes, saying "it's the lakes that make Manchester Lakes what it is..."
Yeah, sure. As the residents discovered in years to come, the lakes turned out to be 100-year storm drainage ditches. At least the one I paid extra to face, eventually had a few beavers and slightly flowing water so it became less and less of a swamp. |
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However, early in the build-up phase of the community, the ecosystem was thrown out of whack, driving off or killing natural tadpole predators like birds and fish. Consquently, in the summer of that memorable year, most of the tadpoles survived and grew up and thousands and thousands of several species of frogs descended on our community, with nothing to stop them.
Here are some of the parts of that saga:
- The cute article I wrote for the community newsletter, when the frogs were still charming.
- Some of the photos, showing how tiny they were, and how they perched on doors, window sills, and climbed up aluminum siding.
- The newspaper's front page article about the "amphibious assault" (in which I'm misquoted slightly and my name is misspelled).
- The memo from the Resource Manager, in collaboration with the Smithsonian Frog expert, to the County's Lee District Supervisor about the Manchester Lakes frogs.
- The Discover magazine article about poisonous toads, sent to me from a funny friend.
- Another timely newspaper article that yet another smart-aleck friend sent.
- This article's photo had its caption changed to more appropriately fit to my situation. What would I do without my friends?!
- It wasn't hard to decide on a theme for that year's Christmas cards.