My house in google map

We currently live in Derby, England, here is my house watched from google map.

 

Below is an enlarged map, the position marked by a ballon was a maple tree, which is in front of my front door, my mother in law said, a tree infront a door will block the Fengshui, so I digged it out and removed it to the left side:

 

Mapple tree removed because of Fengshui 

I bought a spade from homebase, and digged for three days, but still couldn't shake the maple tree, then I had to bought a saw from a shop, sawed the roots, and pulled down the tree at last.

The saw is the cheapest one, Worldwide Brand Hardpoint (World wilde tools limited, sheffield, England), but "stays sharp up to 5 times longer!"

I learned some useful tips from using this saw:

  1. You have to make the first cut with careful reverse strokes, so the saw will not slips and hurt you.
  2. Angle the saw to 45 degrees when working, using full and easy strokes.
  3. If the saw jams, keep the cut open with a small wedge. I cut an wedge out from the big root.

Frogs in my garden

There is a small pond in my back garden, and a big frog family living in that muddy pond. One day I heard a low-pitched croak (or Quack?), and saw a frog jumping out of the grass. This must be a male frog calling his mate, because I soon saw another frog appeared, and they did some very INDESCENT things. Forgive me! I took a picture of them, and post on here.

I don't know what the specie it belong to, but sounds like a bullfrog, because the call is very deep and low-pitched. Those frog in my back garden pond seldom quack, they might be well-educated Middle Class family, very polite and considerate, never make annoying noise to disturb their neighbours.

In my memory, frogs are very noisy, especially after a thunderstorm, all of the frogs take part in the chorus, they whistle, trill, croak, grunt, moan, snore, countless other sounds, some are low pitched, others are high-pitched. It's said couch's spadefoot sounds like a lamb bleating, the wood frog quacks, the carpenter frog's call is like a rhythmic hammering, and the Bullfrog has that familiar, deep harrumph.

There are so many frog egg masses in this muddy pond, at least 10 clusters, if one hundred eggs per cluster, there should be ten thousands of tadpoles swimming in this small area. If all of them develop into froglets, what a terrible scenic will come to pass, thousands of froglets hoping around my garden and our neighbours', such as that frog disaster recorded in Bible which happened in acient Egypt! But, it's said, "since frog eggs are a favorite delicacy of many predators, laying the eggs in large numbers usually assures that at least a few will hatch into tadpoles, and an even fewer number will grow to be adults."

Garden Snails

Frog family are not the only inhabitant in my garden, there is a very large snail community as well.

My wife learned from her colleague that beer trap can kill snails, but then she found out actually we can EAT garden snails. she searched for recipes on the Internet, and told me the most important step is to clean them before cook, because snail might have been near some toxic plants or pesticides (we haven't used pesticides, so no such problems). Just keep snails in a container and feed them lettuce, cabbages or bran, even just let them starve for one week to fortnight.

But I won't eat snails, no way!.