No Good Deed...

I have a “love-hate” relationship with our pool.  I love having it so the kids can all come over and go swimming during the summer.  I hate the other things that go swimming in it at night when we go to bed. 

We have gotten salamanders, moles, and frogs.  I know that most of you out there don’t know me at all, but those of you that do know that I HATE frogs!  I am totally terrified of them and it’s completely irrational, I know, but I am scared to death of them.  So much so that I actually have nightmares about frogs (and snakes for that matter).  Friends of ours used to get snakes in and around their pool at a house they lived in years ago.  Luckily that hasn’t happened to us yet.

If there is a frog in the pool or skimmer I can’t go anywhere near the pool until I know that it’s out and flung as far away from us as humanly possible.  Most of the time my darling husband is the one who has the unfortunate job of de-frogging the pool but, at times, my neighbors are called in as back up. 

Just the other day I went to empty the skimmer (because I saw nothing but leaves and Japanese beetles in there) so I reached in to grab the basket and I saw a leg.  I screamed and ran to the other side of the pool.  I called my wonderful neighbor, Pete, and he came down to extricate the slimy little thing.  I must say, this isn’t the first time Pete had to come and rescue me from frogs in the pool and I’m sure it won’t be the last.

Earlier this week there was a mole in the pool.  We’ve had many moles in the pool in the 6 years that we’ve lived here but this was the first one that was actually swimming around in the morning and hadn’t yet met his demise.  I can handle furry so I got the net and scooped him out to save him. 

Apparently this freaked him out because he scurried right off the edge of the net, fell about 7 feet to the cement, and presumably broke his little leg when he fell because he let out the loudest little squeal I’ve ever heard out of something so small. 

He tried to crawl around the hot cement but couldn’t put any weight on that front leg so I bent down and picked him up to carry him to safety…and then the little bugger bit my finger!  I couldn’t believe it.  I’m trying to help this thing and this is the thanks I get?!?

After posting on Facebook my mole ordeal I got a lot of “support” from my friends.  A good friend of mine actually called and told me I needed to get a rabies shot because she read online that a bite from a mole could be fatal.  I assured her that I was NOT getting a rabies shot.  She texted me the next day to see if I was foaming at the mouth yet.  It’s been 5 days now and I think I’m safe.

I will continue to call any available neighbor to get the frogs out of my pool if my husband isn’t home and I’ll try to save any living mole, I just won’t pick the little buggers up!