My brother used to catch pollywogs and salamanders. I remember being fascinated by them. We always went cmaping by a creek (crick) and would have hours and hours of fun wading in and out of the shallows, scaring up frogs, trout, wtare spiders and other creepy crawlies. I even used to pretend I was a pioneer woman and wash my doll's clothes in the little irrigation ditches in Colorado.

We lived next door to a swamp in CT and had all manner of great critters, including incredible basso profundo bull frogs as well as peepers. we were so take by them, we crept down to the ppond one night with a boom box on an extension cord and made a recording for my mother who lived in dry old Wyoming with no peepers!

We found a turtle, one day, driving near Mystic Village in CT. She was as big as my steering wheel and, we thought, about to get run over. So we picked her up, put her in the back of the car, where she laid several golf ball-like eggs (without the dimples), took her home and called the nature center. Only then did we learn she was a snapping turtle, strong enough to bite our fingers in two and that we should put her back where we found her to finish laying her eggs in the sandy edges of the road where they usually lay them. That explained why we were always seeing runover baby turtles, duh!

The only time I was a little put out at being so close to a swamp was when I sat down on the toilet one day and noticed a little green frog crawling up the wall beside me.

My kids were thrilled when we moved from WY to the Bershires of MA. Their principal had a cranberry bog and every fall would take the kids tramping across it for a field trip. They were in heaven.

Here's to getting wet and muddy!

kat