​after with pitchforks. Nearly three inches, it had a long, flat tail and strange bumps on its sleek body. It undulated through the water with impressive speed, oblivious to the fact that it seemed to be evolving on fast forward. Every day there was something new—the bumps grew into bulging eyes and long legs with webbed feet; its tail was absorbed into its body. Then one day, it was a complete froglet, on its way to frog adulthood.

            Since Trevor could no longer breathe under water, we made him a charming habitat with rocks and shells and a sign that read Beware of Jaws! (just a little frog humor). We hoped he would sit on the limestone in his aquarium and bond with us. Instead, he smashed himself flat between the stone and the glass, wanting desperately for us to go away. He was the most neurotic frog in the world, completely terrified anytime we came near him. Talk about being between a rock and a hard place.

            Food became more complicated as Trevor’s digestive system developed. You can’t just run out and pick up a bag of Purina Frog Chow. Live crickets were the recommended menu, and these had to be kept alive long enough to be fed to the frog on a daily basis. The mosquito larvae would have been less labor-intensive.

             After a few episodes where the dinner managed to escape during the feeding process, it was decided by all involved that perhaps Trevor would be happier out on his own instead of living squashed up against the aquarium wall. We briefly entertained the idea of letting him live in the pond, but the possibility that the dog might eat him was high.

            We took him to a local creek, and in an emotional and moving ceremony, let him swim off to his new life. I thought about singing “Born Free”, but there were others present and I was afraid I would break down before I finished the verse.

            Trevor was not with our family for very long, but I’m tempted to mention the metaphor that this little slice of life has taught me. The one where we watch our own tadpoles hatch and evolve into froglets in the blink of an eye. The awkward stages they go through where they are half tadpole and half frog, trying desperately to figure out which one they want to be, and the periods when they spend all their time smashed flat against the glass or on the phone.

            It happens so fast, and the next thing you know you’re throwing them into a creek and waving goodbye.

            It’s important to look for the parallels between the cycles of humanity and nature, for we are all part of the circle of life. Just remember who toad you so.

    

            Then one summer, after an impossibly wet spring, they finally did what they were supposed to do. The garden exploded into shades of chartreuse and viridian, the foliage lush, the dormant corms pushing up through the muddy ground like beanstalks. My yard had gone from parched desert to Amazonian rainforest.

            Having mastered earth, I decided the next element I would challenge would be water.
A pond was exactly what my Eden needed, so I spent one afternoon digging and hauling and stacking until it looked like a natural grotto had sprung from the ground. I wasn’t planning on fish so I didn’t bother with a pump or a circulation system — I figure it would get stirred up when the dog drank out of it. I had lily pads!

            One day when I was weeding, I happened to notice something moving in the pond. Excitedly, I called my nine-year-old son over and announced to him that the pond had tadpoles, which meant that we would soon have baby frogs! He was very interested in amphibians that year, and begged to be taken to get a tank so that he could keep one in his room. We scooped some of the tadpoles into a baggie to get clear instructions on caring for them and headed off to the pet store.

            As my son browsed among the various saucers and pondered what kind of accessories his new friend would need, I pulled out the plastic bag full of polliwogs and put it on the counter, hoping that the young clerk would be able to isolate one of them for us to raise. He peered into the murky water as I explained to him where they came from and what we planned to do. With a smugness that is reserved for store clerks everywhere, he looked at me with pity and said, “Ma’am. These are not tadpoles. This is mosquito larvae.”  

            Fifteen minutes later, we left the store with a real tadpole and enough paraphernalia to house a whole plague of frogs. My son was gracious enough not to mention how biologically-challenged his mother must be to mistake Zika-bearing larvae for amphibians, but it had been hard to miss the smirk on the clerk’s face.

             The tadpole, named Trevor, was weirdly amazing. It was like an amoeba that had crawled out of the primordial ooze that was going to quickly morph into something that the town folks would have to go