[Vella Gonzaga]

Catching tadpoles​

Who remembers those carefree childhood days spent exploring the great outdoors and enjoying life's simple pleasures? Saturday afternoons and school holidays meant riding to the creek for a dip or catching tadpoles to bring home in a jar and hoping to see them grow into frogs. Do you have any similar childhood memories?

Credits: Australia Remember When FB Page

 

[Gsr]

We used to do the same thing as children. This year the tadpoles have come to us. We have a bath tub set up as our tank overflow, it currently has the second lot of tadpoles in it growing into frogs, they are fascinating to watch and turn into tiny green frogs. Then they hop off into our garden. We also have two round black tubs on our back path that have been housing tadpoles for months, and recently the moat around our castle water feature filled up with tadpoles. There are masses of them in it. They become very shy as they grow and dive to the bottom of the tub when they sense our presence. We sure must have some randy frogs around. We have frogs croaking all around our house when it rains, it is great to hear.

 

[Daughter83]

I can remember catching frog’s spawn and collecting it from the creek it was like jelly with a black dot in the middle we took it home and watched the dot grow a tail and become a tadpole then legs to become a frog that would jump out of the jar then we would take them back to the creek

 

[pixiemoon]

When I was younger I always collected tadpoles. One year I put a tub in the bathroom & I also had a pray mantis egg sack there. Mum was not impressed when they all hatched at the same time. I still have my tadpoles as I have a frog pond set up & my grand children can feed & watch them develop. It’s sad when you can’t let your kids roam free down at the creek like we did because of the danger from people who want to harm them.

 

[grannyjenn]

We used to go tadpole-ing at the bottom of our street where Adelaide Airport is now.

 

[Earth child]

I can remember picking wild blackberries and mushrooms with the family in the mid 60’s around the Ballarat area. It was an exciting weekend drive into the countryside and we’d come home with full baskets. Mum made blackberry jam and fry up the mushrooms for a Sunday night dinner on toast

 

[JayKay]

Tadpoling in winter, blackberrying in summer, Mushrooming in May.
Life was simple, uncomplicated, free and easy, we didn’t need to be supervised all the time.
We collected the tadpoles in old paint tins, and watched them grow into frogs and disappear into the garden as gorgeous little wee frogs.
The blackberries ripened at the end of January, and Mum made a yummy blackberry syrup to pour over pancakes. We thought she was the cleverest Mum in the neighbourhood, she fed us all.
The mushrooms were abundant down the creek in May. There were the toadstools too, but we didn’t touch those. Mushrooms on toast were yummy.

 

[Gsr]

What good memories, we used to go blackberry picking and come home covered in purple stain on our hands, clothes and around our mouth. Mum made blackberry pies, jam, scones, muffins, syrups, we lived on blackberries for weeks. We used to throw boards into the blackberry bush to walk out on to get the best blackberries from the middle of the bush. Sometimes we would fall off the board and get lots of scratches from the bush. Being wild blackberry bushes they were huge and spread over a large area, they weren’t poisoned out as pests back then. We also picked mushrooms after every shower of rain, they tasted the best. We also pulled yams and ate them and we would find bush berries of all sorts and eat them. Living in bush areas we were taught what was safe to eat and what wasn’t by our grandparents, parents and neighbours, it was such a simple carefree life.