Ok, we do have pets now!

No, not the dull cats and dogs variety, but since Papa does not approve of dogs, and Mamma does not want any pets at all for the fear of making her allergy worse, the kids have to improvise, and improvise they do. Keeping in mind that the oldest wants to join WWF and go around the world saving the animals despite her fear of even the smallest representatives of wildlife, saying that, I must admit that for 4 days now she is not afraid of the ants, and that's a big deal for her! Anyway, recently we went out to the river and came back with a bottle of 6 tadpoles.
The girls were ecstatic, so much so that kind and wonderful Papa went to the shop, and bought them a little aquarium/terrarium, and made the new family members a comfortable home. Thanks to Google we have been reading on the habbits of tadpoles, necessary conditions for keeping them and feeding the poor beggars, since I for one had not had the foggiest idea of what to do with them otherwise. We feed them lettuce and burgers (!) and they seem to like it.

They seem to be quite happy and settled in their new habitat, and the kids love watching them float up to the top, take a gulp of air and go down again busying themselves with something around the stones or the bottom area. Since the first six their family has grown, as we went to the top of a mountain nearby, and the girls saw the alpine pond, or a tiny lake teeming with tadpoles,

...now we have about 22 of them altogether, they are not easy to count, too wriggly and eratic. But they are our very first pets, if you don't count the wounded sparrow that we nursed back to life back in UK, or the ducks that nested in our garden. So woo-hoo for us!

But!!!!
When we got back home we noticed something that looked like tiny bits of feces on the doorsteps, and discovered that a very different kind of wildlife lives -well- I suppose you could say right on our doorstep... More on the wildlife story tomorrow, as I can hear my bed calling my name. TTFN