When I was a little girl, my older sister and I had a
favorite pastime. Course, we couldn’t do it year round. Circumstances just
didn’t allow for that. So what did we enjoy doing? Catching and playing with
the most adorable little frogs. None were any bigger than the size of an adult
male’s thumbnail.
My stepfather took great pride in maintaining near perfect
St. Augustine lawn. No, he wasn’t super Nazi, not allowing us to play on it or
stuff like that. In fact, he encouraged us, along with the scores of
neighborhood kids, to play, roll, somersault and cartwheel our way across our
lovely lawns.
To ensure a nice thick hatch, he watered regularly, deep
watering when needed, and fertilized the lawns twice a year. Now he didn’t use
any of the fancy chemical-based fertilizers we have nowadays. No. What my stepfather
used was good old-fashioned fertilizer. To this day, whenever I catch a whiff
of natural fertilizer, I have fond memories of my step dad’s lawn and the frogs
it allowed my older sister and I to catch and play with.
So how could a super healthy St. Augustine lawn, complete
with a thick hatch provide the ideal living conditions for the tiny frogs we
loved to gather? Simple. Since the hatch was so thick, and my stepfather maintained
a perfectly edged lawn, an inch laying between the edge of the lawn and
concrete back patio, the frogs would burrow their way under the patio by way of
hopping down into the edged lawn trough my step dad created.
So how did my sis and I go about catching said little frogs?
We’d get a small wastebasket from in the house. Then, armed with that and
nothing else, our fun would begin. Our escapades always had to begin shortly
before the sun would set, for that’s when the little frogs tended to emerge from
deep under the patio. Tapping along the edge of the patio, close to the edged
lawn crevice, my sister and I would encourage the little fellas to hop out of
their hiding places. When they did, we were quick to shoo them into the
awaiting wastebasket.
Success!
Tune in tomorrow to find out what my sister and I would do
with the frogs once they were caught.
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