Ah, frogs... my first introduction to Mother's Nature's denizens of the great outdoors. I was 6-years-old when my grandfather (a naturalist, self-educated ecologist, and Dahlia grower) gave me a pair of Pacific tree frogs (formerly Hyla regilla, what we now know these days as Pseudacris regilla/"Pacific chorus frogs") to take to show and tell. I was mesmerized by these tiny beings... their large eyes and whimsical faces, long legs, and especially their tiny hands with fingers that gripped twigs and blades of grass so proficiently. It was love at first sight, and it endures to this day.

Those first two frogs were named Junior and Sissy, and we wound up keeping them as pets. They lived, at first, in a one gallon pickle jar with holes punched in the lid. They had mossy branches to climb on, a nice river rock to sit on, and a tiny red ceramic baking dish for water. My mother was in charge of their care and would mist them a couple times a day and change their "swimming water" daily & clean out their jar and replace or wash the native moss once or twice a week. She would leave the water to gas off in a kettle a couple days before giving it to the frogs. I was in charge of catching bugs, and what kid isn't good at that? I would stalk flies and moths, go after young grasshoppers, dig for grubs and tiny earthworms, and other assorted creepers the little frogs might like, and they liked a lot! When winter came along the bugs became fewer and farther in between, and mother knew we would have to do something fast to keep our resident froggles fed. We didn't have a pet store back then (that I remember) just a Five and Dime which carried Budgies, hamsters, mice, canaries, finches, goldfish and guppies; if they'd had anything else it would likely have been turtles and Carolina anoles (which they called "chameleons" back then) but no frogs or other reptiles. Since we didn't know where to get bugs my mother had the idea to buy fish vegetable flakes and tropical fish conditioning food, she then mixed that with the leanest sirloin burger she could find and rolled it into tiny fly sized bites... "Frog Food" was born. We would make quarter sized balls of frog food and wrap it in plastic wrap, then in aluminum foil, and keep it in the freezer a plastic freezer jam box. When we fed the frogs we would take out one of these frozen balls and warm it in our hands or a glass of warm water. I sometimes used to sit on the frog food to unthaw it while watching cartoons... still wrapped, of course, lol. Well the next problem came with trying to get the food into the frogs. We tried tossing the bits near them, balling it up around the end of a string then swinging it in front of them, or just wiggling it with the end of a straw. Green and gold Junior would make a grab once in a while, but Sissy... oh no, little pansy faced, fat bodied, bright green Sissy would have nothing to do with such schenanigans! She puffed up, tucked her head and refused to eat. This worried mom, who talked to grandpa on the phone-- he said we would have to force feed them if we couldn't get them to eat. And that is what mom did. She got some blunt flat toothpicks (they were much stronger and less apt to break back in those days), put a folded terry towel on the kitchen table, lay some dry paper towels on that, then gently took each frog in a damp paper towel, pried open their jaws and popped in a tiny nugget of food. She learned to quickly stroke under the frog's gullet with the flat end of the toothpick so they would swallow and not spit the food back out. She gave each frog 2-4 little pieces of frog food, then set them on the paper towel covered bath towel, and taking a squeeze bottle, dribbled water over the frog for a "drink". After that back into their clean house they went. Sissy was a stubborn little pill and never did learn how to eat frog food without being force fed (live bugs no problem), but Junior, now Junior was smart! It only took my mother maybe three or four feeding sessions before one day Junior took the food on his own! He was sitting on the towel (I was watching him so he wouldn't jump away) and my mom was using the toothpick to pull little bits of frog food from the bigger wad. She then rolled it between her fingers (we always washed and rinsed our hands thoroughly before and after) and was trying to put it on the end of the toothpick when it fell off... Junior leaped over and nabbed the food right off the towel! Mom thought it was a fluke, but she saw he was watching as she rolled more food; she put it on the end of her finger, let it roll off, and he grabbed it again... the third time he didn't even wait for the food to fall but took it right off her finger, and that was how Junior (and later a select few of his future companions) ate ever since.

I'm not sure if we have photos of our froggles from back then, other than from a newspaper article that was done on our "unique pets" when I was 9, but it and the photos are probably long buried in the family photo box (wherever it is!) If I can find it I'll dig around and see if I can get some decent scans.

Well it's almost 3 A.M. here! (Darn Daylight Savings Time, ugh!) so I need to hit the sack. More about Junior, Sissy, and our past crew of froggles tomorrow.