Frog story

 Ever since we got back from Tasmania, it's been unseasonably dry, especially the last month, when we've only had a measly 2mm.

Not only has it been dry, it's been cold, with the temperatures dipping to something close to zero most nights, even if  some days it's been pleasantly warm in the afternoon.

Other days it's never really warmed up, making working outside quite unpleasant, and as a result I've let the garden slide, apart from a bit of pruning here and there, and as the soil was so dry, autumn tasks like planting broad beans seemed pointless.

However, we're forecast a decent rainfall over the next few days, so yesterday I planted my broad beans and a couple of rows of Chinese cabbage and mizuna, in the hope we get some winter greens.

As well as the broad beans, a few days ago I finally got round to starting to clear the couch grass. 

And here's the grim part of the story.

When I was cleaning my garden fork I found I'd impaled a frog through the leg. I'm guessing it must have been hibernating in the leaf litter and couch grass. 

It seemed pretty inert and unresponsive, and I assumed that I had inadvertantly killed it.

I felt guilty, but there was nothing to do but put it in our green waste bin.

And then, the day before bin day I was putting some dead bits of cabbage in the green bin before putting it out in the street, and suddenly the frog popped its head out of the accumulated green waste and started climbing about.

I'm guessing it wasn't as badly injured as I thought and that it had been in shock, or what passes for shock in frogs. Anyway, I grabbed the cat poo scoop and flipped it out into some ground cover and leaf litter next to the fence. I sprayed the area with water, and left it to it, hoping it survived.

We don't have any water features in our garden but we did have a lot of heavy rain last winter and spring I'm guessing that the frog's progenitors must have spawned in a puddle somewhere in the garden.

So, lesson learnt, no matter how dry it is, be careful of hibernating frogs and lizards while working in the garden ...