Stasia and WF tadpoles

The Wood Frog tadpoles started hatching a couple of days ago, but most of them are still sticking pretty close to their home egg masses. This meant, if my granddaughter and I moved fast, we could easily catch some and bring them home to nurture and watch. I got hooked on nature this way, although I must have done so on my own—I can't imagine either of my very urban parents taking me for a tadpole-procuring trip in the woods (although we always had tropical fish)—so I've made certain that all of my kids and grandkids have been exposed to young amphibians. Stasia was eager to find some, and, though it took a while to spot the eggs in a tricky late-afternoon light, we were persistent and, eventually, successful in our hunt. We set up an aquarium, added rocks and water, then released our quarry. I boiled up some lettuce, which, I explained, is the perfect tadpole food, and we settled down to observe the critters. "What do their mommies feed them?" she asked. I could deal with the issue of parental abandonment later, so I told her, "A tiny plant called algae." She liked the word and repeated it often.