March MOTM - Lisa (irThumper)

[irThumper]

Beautiful pics! Your cousin has an amazing eye! Thank you so much for sharing them!

Btw, the voice is my one guilty pleasure reality show


Education is the most powerful weapon we can use to change the world ~ Nelson Mandela

Thanks, Bill! You can see why I'm addicted to his photos, and to Oregon I really hope someday we'll see his work go pro.

Gotta love The Voice-- mom swears Blake Shelton must be related to us, as he looks almost exactly like an uncle of hers on her dad's side. Blake's such a smart alec (albeit a talented smart alec, lol) that I can believe it!

[irThumper]

Wow! Thank you so much for these pics! Absolutely stunning photography, and so much inspiration for tanks

Thanks! Oh, hey I never thought of that! I really need to share some of his fungi pics, amazing mushrooms, bracket fungus (Conks); great stuff! Think I'll just make an album of his pics at Photobucket so I can share the link here, lol

[Cliygh and Mia 2]

Nope... don't even know what that is lol

It's a pretty weird/dark kids shows with more explanations than Five Nights at Freddy's!(which is pretty hard to beat)

[jarteta97]

Thanks, Bill! You can see why I'm addicted to his photos, and to Oregon I really hope someday we'll see his work go pro.

Gotta love The Voice-- mom swears Blake Shelton must be related to us, as he looks almost exactly like an uncle of hers on her dad's side. Blake's such a smart alec (albeit a talented smart alec, lol) that I can believe it!

Hahaha, and the bromance between Blake and Adam is hilarious!!!

[irThumper]

It's a pretty weird/dark kids shows with more explanations than Five Nights at Freddy's!(which is pretty hard to beat)

Will take your word for it!

[irThumper]

Hahaha, and the bromance between Blake and Adam is hilarious!!!

Totally! Those two guys are crazy, lol!

[irThumper]

Ok, as promised here's the link some of my fav photos of Jay's of various critters he's found while on the job (Wildlands management/firefighting)

Fav Pics By My Cousin Jay Photos by irthumper | Photobucket

He has some awesome fungi pics too, that all you frogger types can appreciate I'll add those soon!

[Cliygh and Mia 2]

Will take your word for it!

Word of advice, it's addictive. Here I am at 12:04 in the morning watching it... Oh, I need sleep...

[irThumper]

Here's some more of my poetry...

My Writing by IrThumper on DeviantArt

I've wanted to write ever since I took Creative Writing in high school. My preferred genre is Fantasy (naturally, being a Unicornologist, lol) with the poetry being a bit of a sideline. My mother is the real poet in the family, but sadly she has been unable to write any since her stroke years ago. I would love to have a book of mine picked up by a traditional publishing house (like TOR Fantasy) someday, but it is going to take a heck of a lot more than just muse; I, unfortunately, have forgotten a lot more about the technicalities of writing than I probably ever knew! Right now the fantasy writing is on the back burner while I work on a project based on my experiences with my current froggles.

[irThumper]

Going to wrap this week up with a few thoughts that are important to me


Treat everyone as kindly as you can, for you don't know the struggle someone may be going through. May you
in turn find kindness and compassion when you need it the most.

[LilyPad]

Week 2, tell us about your amphibians. How you came to keep them, mistakes/learning curves, species kept, breedings, how you found Frog Forum etc....we heard enough about you on week 1, let us hear about them frogs!

[irThumper]

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.

[Cliygh and Mia 2]

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.

You had a newspaper article! Lucky! my sister had her picture in one as well yet no picture for their little brother who was in the same school I'm just kidding about being sad, that was when I was like, 4-5 years old, so I don't even remember where that school was! But your still pretty lucky!

[Heatheranne]

Stunning photography!

Wow! Great ideas for Vivariums as well .

[irThumper]

Stunning photography!

Wow! Great ideas for Vivariums as well .

I'm thinking of suggesting to Jay that he take some pics specifically for use as vivarium backgrounds too I know I want one!

[irThumper]

You had a newspaper article! Lucky! my sister had her picture in one as well yet no picture for their little brother who was in the same school I'm just kidding about being sad, that was when I was like, 4-5 years old, so I don't even remember where that school was! But your still pretty lucky!

Lol, thanks :P It was years ago and I don't remember much about it myself My mom did all the interview stuff and my staring shot was a pic of me holding up a jar with our pet garden snails, Lady, Blondie and Indigo

[irThumper]

Amphibians are like pretzels, you can't have just one...

When mom perfected her frog feeding technique we decided to upgrade Junior and Sissy to a bigger home and get them a few friends. We added PCFs Green Girl, Gwendolyn, Cousin, Baby, and Rupert 1, 2 and 3... The Ruperts looked like triplets and were all brownish with bold black markings. Most of these guys were various rescues from cats, or children who brought them to us because their mothers wouldn't let them keep them, or our most interesting find-- the baby tree frog hopping down the produce aisle floor in the grocery store!

Interesting facts:

--Junior and Sissy lived to appx 6+ years.

--Other than our PCFs we eventually also had six Pacific Red-Legged frogs (Rana aurora) named Swampy, Rosy, Cedrina, Jerome, Shadrach and Mescach; a Western toad(Bufo boreas) named Wart; three Rough skinned newts (Taricha granulosa) named Sally, Nikki, and Newtly; a Northern alligator lizard (Elagaria coerulea) named "Skink"; and three garden snails named Lady, Blondie, and Indigo.

--We took our first PCFs on a road trip through Oregon/Washington once because we couldn't find anyone knowledgeable to care for them while we were on vacation. I sat in the back seat of the car next to the tank, which was wrapped in towels to protect it. It was my job to mist the frogs through the screen lid to help keep them cool. We carried frozen frog food with us in a little cooler. I remember mom and dad sneaking the tank into the Motel 6... lol! On the way home from that trip we had to stop for a swarm of little red newts that were crossing the road at a bridge... I was threatened with permanent grounding if I tried to get out of the car and collect any!

--The frogs are the reason my folks finally got air conditioning... to heck with the people, couldn't let the frogs get too hot, lol!

--While waiting their turn at feeding time I let our frogs play on my Fisher Price Castle set; Junior used to climb to the very top of the flag then swat toward the overhead room light with his little hand.

(it was one like this)

--After graduation I had a pair of Firebelly toads (Bombina orientalis) named Yin and Yang

Next time: Froggy summers and a vacation blunder!

[Frogger00]

Wow you've owned a lot of frogs in your lifetime!


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[irThumper]

Wow you've owned a lot of frogs in your lifetime!


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Not nearly as many as some folks though, I know, lol Most of my experience as been with the native species. Back then no one cared if you kept a few as pets, nowadays in this state you're not supposed to keep any of them They don't even allow people to have Firebellied toads here anymore, which really SUCKS because those guys are awesome! We aren't allowed to have other species from across the U.S., like American Greens, Barking tree frogs, or Grays (etc.) either *sniffs!* and yet we are allowed to have Cane toads and Cuban tree frogs! Makes no sense to me at all, *shakes head*.

[Frogger00]

I feel your pain about not being able to have certain species! A lot of toads are illegal here. Cane toads for one, and also bullfrogs! Rats are also illegal to own as well, and basically anything larger than a common boa is also illegal. Most of the animals are illegal because they are invasive. Big snakes, well that's just the government being dumb lol. I absolutely love cane toads, so it's really unfortunate that I can't have one!


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