creative pest control

One of the biggest immediate challenges with this new house was back yard pest control. The fish actually take care of the mosquitoes, and there are quite a few spiders that take care of the other miscellaneous annoying bugs.

However, there is the ever-present issue of giant roaches. I have seen a couple, and I'm determined to not let them ruin my enjoyment of the back porch. There is no way to eliminate them, but I'll keep fighting that battle.

I originally insisted that the entire back yard be nuked with poison, but there was a concern that it might hurt the fish. Well, crap.

So I baited as much as I could around the house, and kept pondering solutions for the rest of the yard.

Then last weekend I joined foxy grandpa at his friends' property for some "glamping." They have a pond on their property and at night a ton of frogs emerged. Big bullfrogs.

Frogs! They eat roaches! What a nature-friendly way to solve my problem!
There are plenty of small frogs around the back yard, and I think the big roaches are too much for them, but a larger frog could probably eat a lot of them.

We discussed catching a big frog right then and bringing it home, and I was really excited about my solution, but I wanted to do some research first. Mostly because those bullfrogs made a lot of noise and I could see it getting really annoying right outside my bedroom door.

I'm glad I did some research. Some frogs carry bacteria and parasites that might upset the current ecosystem, and the process would be slightly more complicated than catching a frog, bringing it home, and letting it loose in the backyard.

Then yesterday I happened to peek outside during a rain storm, and noticed this moderately-sized guy:

What do you know! I already have a frog! He was pretty active yesterday, jumping in the water and hopping around.

Hopefully he's got a big appetite.