Oh, My Aching Back

Can you tell what these are? Toads!!! Loads and loads of toads! That was fun to say. My in-laws have an in ground pool that they didn't cover this winter. So they had about 20 frogs in the dark green/black water. No telling how many were on the bottom drowned. They are mating right now and one of these frogs is quite randy. He was attempting to mate with a large, I assume female, toad that was dying. We pulled them up and he stayed on top of her for the entire 6 hours that they were in our possession. Why were 7 toads in our possession you might ask? Well because Owen loves all animals and fancies himself a zookeeper. He wanted to take some home to look at and to show his dad. So we kept them in this bucket for 6 hours until David could come home and see them, then we took them for a walk to a nearby creek and dropped them off in their new home. I doubt they'll like it much, though, seeing as how toads tend to like more stagnant water as found in ponds. Here's a close up in case you happen to be a toad aficionado.

On this same day I had the pleasure of cleaning up the mess that my husband made whilst massacring my juniper bushes. Is massacring a word? It must be the spell check didn't object. Anyway, I think my husband has lost his mind. Sure they needed a trim but did they deserve this?

This is why my back is in agony. This is 11 lawn bags full of clippings, which are suprisingly heavy.
See that little pile of bush bloodshed on the sidewalk? That's how much is still left because I ran out of bags. The entire sidewalk for the whole length of the bushes had a continuous pile of debris that tall until I tackled it. That my friends is a lot of bending for one gal. I think the continuous bending over was harder than lugging the full sacks down the sidewalk. But at least I felt productive and empowered afterwards. Also justified not going to the gym. :)