The Painted Fish is registered with the Open Garden Scheme and are having their Open Garden weekend on Saturday 5th and Sunday 6th of September. Kylie Wheatley from Red Tent Events has rallied the local community and local businesses involved in sustainability and organised a street stall market called The Sustainability Fiesta.

So come along and see The Painted Fish’s wonderful frog ponds and gardens and soak up the atmosphere of an Eco Friendly ergo Frog Friendly Fiesta! Yours truly will be there with my very own stall, you can buy a cute frog heat bag or a frog-in-a-pond jelly for the kids and take home a Perth Zoo Frog Pond sheet to get you started on your own frog pond in your own backyard.

The Painted Fish Open Garden Scheme Sustainability Fiesta is being held in Hulbert Street, South Fremantle on Sat 5 & Sun 6 September and is open 10am til 4pm both days. See you there!

Your frogs will inhabit your whole yard. They are motion hunters and will roam the yard, and sometimes the neighbourhood, gobbling anything that moves. If it don’t move they’re not interested.

Because of this voracious appetite they grow quite quickly. I have a couple of frogs that emerged from the water in January or February as small as a five cent coin. Now in April they are unrecognisable as those browny grey little blobs. They are as big as my nine year old sons hand and are splendid green and gold.

The evidence that they inhabit my whole yard is their droppings, scat, poo if you will. I find it every where and quite delightedly so, as this is like a little calling card. My frog woz ‘ere! I find it on the side of the pool, on the hand rails of the pool, on the lips of my pot plants, on leaves in my passion fruit vine, and even on the arms of the plastic chairs around my outdoor table.

A frog poo is discernible by its shape and texture. It is cylindrical in shape with points on both ends. One points up and the other points down! Its texture is a bit uneven as you can see the shape of what the frog has eaten.

I became quite curious about what my frogs were finding to eat in my backyard and one day got up the courage to pull apart a poo and see what I could see. I found a dropping that I knew was a few days old. It had been baking in the sun on the side of my pool, so I knew it would be dessicated and I just carefully broke it appart. It was fascinating. I could see compound eyes, insect legs, wings. Wow! How abundant the wildlife must be out there that we just never see!

The next time I found a likely looking frog poo I picked it up to examine it and it crumbled in my hand. It was 90% sand with only a single set of compound eyes at the very end like some evolved boondie with eyes. I was very puzzled about the eating habits of this frog! Maybe his aim was just a bit off that day.

Our motorbike frogs had high hopes over the summer. They were trying to attract a mate to share their yard and ponds.

We’ve got two ponds at the moment. One has a permanent community of gambezia and native perch. The other pond has a selection of koi and goldfish. We have two three year old motorbike frogs we bred ourselves from collected tadpoles at the school pond. We also have recently emerged motorbike frog babies.

The frogs inhabit the whole yard including both ponds. Now and then they will even have a dip in the swimming pool. The more mature frogs like to hang out near the back door which we like to think is their way of saying hello. These frogs started calling last November and continued until about January. It is such a lovely sound.

During the summer nights we sit out by the pool with our visitors. Suddenly the frogs will start up and everyone goes quiet listening to them. It makes the night something special.

I don’t think the frog calling attracted a mate because we haven’t seen any new comers or tadpoles. Maybe next summer. For our frogs and our family it is something to look forward to!