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Gardening

Aaargh! I've just committed frogicide!

(20 Posts)
NfkDumpling Wed 02-Sep-15 17:05:56

There I was on my hands and knees cutting back the long grass around the newly flowering cyclamen and other plants in my tiny wild area, when a little frog clambers up in front of me - with only one leg - and bits of innards hanging out! Doomed it was. Doomed! And I'd done it! I ran hurried indoors to find Better Half and plead with him to DOO SOMETHING! But by the time we returned the little froggie had struggled away to die alone. I am mortified!

I always make lots of noise and bash stuff around to get frogs and mice and things into the open. This is the first time - I think - I've actually slaughtered anything. Any ideas of anything more I could have done?

(The leg is still lying on edge of the lawn - hopefully BH will remove it for me!)

jinglbellsfrocks Wed 02-Sep-15 17:15:37

I don't think you could have done anything else. It's not your fault. You didn't know it was there. sad

Have a cup of tea.

NfkDumpling Wed 02-Sep-15 17:20:17

Thanks Jingl. The trouble is I know it's in there somewhere, and I have severe dead thing phobia! I've asked BH (usually known as DH - but I need to butter him up) to strim the lot and rake it off. Like they do roadside verges. It won't be done as short then.

J52 Wed 02-Sep-15 18:22:28

NFK gardening can be traumatic! I know how you feel! We have had a poorly looking pigeon wandering around the garden today. It is worrying me, I don't like it!

Maybe nature will help it on its way.

X

jinglbellsfrocks Wed 02-Sep-15 18:47:39

You do get pigeons like that. The one DH ran over (mentioned on another thread) made no attempt to get out of the way of our car. Something wasn't right with it.

jinglbellsfrocks Wed 02-Sep-15 18:50:26

I'm sorry to say Nfk that since reading your post I have been quietly warbling "A frog he would a-wooing go, hey-ho said Roly..." hmm shock

jinglbellsfrocks Wed 02-Sep-15 18:51:25

A fox will probably solve your problem.

Nelliemoser Wed 02-Sep-15 18:53:13

NFK There is little you can do. Stuff happens.

When we were cutting back the overhang of the neighbours leylandii in July, OH dislodged a nest containing a large nearly fledged pigeon chick. We left it in the nest on the ground but didn't see it later.

Nothing we could. All sensible birds have fledged by July but the ever bonking pigeons don't seem to have a season.

J52 Wed 02-Sep-15 19:57:39

Yes, as we have a den in the field next door, I expect some feather evidence tomorrow. It's gone out of sight now.

x

tiggypiro Wed 02-Sep-15 20:06:14

I feel for you Nfk. I was once horrified to find a frog speared onto the end of my garden fork. Especially when although it's innards were hanging out it still managed to wriggle a bit. I scraped it off the fork and left it for a meal for something else.

NfkDumpling Wed 02-Sep-15 21:18:31

Eyueeww! I have to brace myself to pick up a live frog, the thought of having speared one on a garden fork - I think the fork would have been slung in the bushes until the frog desicated. That's what I'm relying on. This one will either have been eaten or rotted away by spring!

NfkDumpling Wed 02-Sep-15 21:21:27

(This frog wasn't old enough to go a-wooing Jingl. It was only second year size. Cut off before it's prime - literally!)

NfkDumpling Wed 02-Sep-15 21:21:46

I'm singing it now!

BlackeyedSusan Wed 02-Sep-15 22:35:55

Bonking pigeons are dead useful though. There is a reason it is called the birds and the bees. The birds are randy and not shy at all. Eases children into those "awkward" questions.

As to the poor frog, (and poor you cupcake . ) The frog will probably eaten by magpies, crows or foxes.

NotTooOld Thu 03-Sep-15 12:08:22

I committed frogicide once. I ran over a very large one in our drive. I did see it but it was too late. It made an awful squishing noise and left its flattened and frog-shaped corpse on the tarmac for weeks. I still cringe when I think about it.

inishowen Thu 03-Sep-15 13:56:30

I still cringe when I remember killing a baby bird. I wash hanging washing on the line and stepped back. I heard a crunch and I stepped in the bird. To this day I feel sick about it.

EEJit Thu 03-Sep-15 20:48:40

I've never knowingly committed frogicide, or birdiside for that matter, but I have almost committed rabbiticide a time or two. The little buggers used to play chicken in the lane to our village.

Beloved has accused me of being a serial insect killer after seeing all the dead bodies on the front Of the car but I reckon they were suicida anyway. Think about it, they are so small and light they should have been blown over the car in the airflow. For them to be splattered on my paintwork they must have been suicidal.

NfkDumpling Thu 03-Sep-15 21:05:41

Oh, Inis that's awful! I shall always wear shoes when hanging out the washing in future - I do tend to pad around in bare feet!

rubysong Thu 03-Sep-15 21:19:42

Snailicide and slugicide on a regular basis and flying anticide the other week when millions of them appeared at once. It's nature red in tooth and claw and all of the above were out to get me/my vegetables so they had to go. Sorry about your frog though. I love to see them hopping about the garden.

NfkDumpling Thu 03-Sep-15 22:57:23

It was his big trusting eyes and the little hands - and the leg all on it's own on the grass!!

I'm pretty useless really. I can't kill snails or slugs either, and shoo flying insects outside whenever possible. But I do have thrushes, magpies, blackbirds and at least one hedgehog to do my dirty work for me. Hopefully one of them will have cleared up the froggie remains!