As I mentioned in an earlier post, I am using kitty litter buckets as rain barrels in my yard. For a while, we were getting quite a bit of rain, so the buckets were about 2/3 full.
Imagine my delight when I went out one morning to use the water from one of my makeshift rainbarrels and saw...tadpoles! Yessirree, I had lots of tadpole critters swimming around in my
bucket. I wasn't entirely sure how they got in there, but figured a frog had jumped in the water from the tree stump the bucket was braced against and, well, laid eggs or did whatever frogs do to have tadpoles! (I must admit my ignorance here.)Unfortunately, I didn't have an opportunity to take a picture of the friendly little swimmers since my camera is broken. The picture at left looks a LOT like my bucket (borrowed from the Aquarium Board Web site at http://www.aquariumboard.com/forums/articles/7.htm - pay them a visit to talk about aquarium stuff!).
Thrilled with my tadpole adventure, I went to work to discuss my new finding with my friend Michelle. "I am growing tadpoles!"
She could hear the excitement in my voice, and usually she is equally excited when I make a gardening discovery. This time, however, her voice was hesitant as she asked, "How do you know they are tadpoles?"
So I described the big heads and taillike bodies and the swishing way they were swimming.
"Um, I think they aren't tadpoles. They're mosquito larvae. Search Google for mosquito larvae images."
Heart sinking quickly (because I know Michelle is probably right since she usually is about all things gardening-related), I conducted said Google search and found--the picture you see above.
Mosquito. larvae. ugh.
She was disappointed, too. "I really wish they WERE tadpoles," she said.
Mosquito. babies. must. die.
So I went home, dumped out the mosquito babies' amniotic fluid, and stomped the larvae to death. And felt no remorse.
Does that make me a bad person?
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