It was, and still is, fairly large, and that bulge in the middle is not a frog, certainly not a tadpole, and ummm not a lizard. Unfortunately it is one of my $10 koi. Oh well it is just like the gophers eating the trees and making expensive Hawk food, in this case it’s just expensive Roadrunner (maybe kingsnake) food.
People come and visit, tour the constructed wetland, and see other stuff. Virtually all of them comment on the wildlife. The butterflies, the bees, the hummingbirds. They say “oh I’d love to see or have a roadrunner on my property.” Well I don’t kill the lizards or snakes or poison the insects which are lizard food. So the Roadrunners actually have something to eat. And I don’t kill something, or even get all bent out of shape, because it ate _my_ property.
It is all an ecology. How would I decide which part I want and which part I eliminate? Nature is by far the best system for deciding what comes and goes.
A perfect example of that is my “mustard field” For those of you outside of California I will explain: The religious Padres traveled up and down California to their Missions and scattered mustard seed along the way as a way of finding the path back. Mustard, a non-native invasive, is now ubiquitous throughout California.
When I planted my orchard I decided that I would try to discourage the mustard and encourage the native flora. In the section that was outside the orchard I didn’t worry about it. So while I was digging up gophers and letting them go outside the orchard zone I was also pulling up mustard when I saw it blooming, trying to prevent additional seed.
Well this year I have been fortunate that no gophers have crossed the “Gopher moat” back into the orchard. In addition I have noticed that immediately outside the orchard there is virtually no mustard and inside there is a bit more then I would have preferred, given all my work pulling it up.
It dawned on me that Gophers probably do a pretty good job of eating mustard. And that they have been much more effective at eliminating the mustard then the work I did pulling it up. In addition the native plants are probably pretty good at dealing with gophers :-)
Live with the world rather than against it my friends.
