There are certain realities about living in South Florida that have to do with local wildlife. Having a swimming pool means you will attract or have interaction with some of those animals in a different way. We do have a fence and therefore have not to date had alligators, caimans, or crocodiles pay us a visit. The day we had a snake wasn’t fun and we still haven’t figured out how we got the crab in the pool one time. I mean it had to have come from a distance.

Anyway, various birds are constantly dipping in only to be disappointed in tasting chlorine, and the most frequent problem is the tiny frogs that are not much larger than my fingernail. We manage to rescue quite a few, although not all by any means. Yesterday, I really was doing my best, but as usually happens, the thought of being scooped up gets translated in their little frog brains as, “I’m going to be eaten”, and they engage in escape maneuvers. I do understand, and the one yesterday was either more determined than others or I was slower than I thought. At any rate, he did finally get deposited outside the pool and hopefully will go one to live a nice frog life among the vegetation of which we have plenty. It so happens that we also had quite a few dead “big head ants” (I don’t know the proper name) floating in the pool and I noticed one very live one minding his own business on the hard deck. He was well away from the house, so I saw no reason to bother him. The gecko that dashed over and gobbled him up was another matter entirely. Ah well, such is the animal kingdom.