Owen recently took over the care of our neighbors tadpole while they were away on vacation. I came home from work several days ago and Owen was so excited to tell me all about the tadpole that had come into our possession that day and how only a couple of hours after we took it in, Owen and Ken thought it might be dead (apparently while Ken was upstairs with Zora, Owen had taken the tadpole out of the house to show the mailman and in the process had spilled all of the water out of the little tank). But while Owen assured me they had managed to save it, Ken shook his head and mouthed silently that it was, in fact, dead. I was a little concerned that within hours of our neighbors entrusting us with their tadpole, we had managed to kill it. Later, I asked Ken when he was going to tell Owen. He wasn't sure. And then I went over and shook the tank and lo and behold, it moved. Barely, but it moved. I guess it was just traumatized but not, in fact, dead. Over the next couple of days it continued to not alone be alive, but actually grow legs and turn in to a frog, much to Owen's delight. After a few more days it was out of the water full time and we decided it was time to let it go. So yesterday Owen, Zora and I went down near Lake Mendota and found a nice spot to let the frog go. Owen was a little melancholy about the whole thing and said that now it would be lonely without his pet frog and he was worried if it would survive out in the wild. I assured him that the frog was where it was supposed to be and would be fine. As we walked back, he looked at me and said "It is just so hard to let it go into the big, wild world after taking care of it for so long." And I looked back at him and said, "I feel the same way."
The tadpole survived the trauma to become a frog.
The frog in it's new home.
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