i don't know the difference between lizards and frogs

we have a pond next to our deck in the back that we've been cleaning out. it's really really gross and it's covered in inches of poopy sludge at the bottom. (yummy mental picture, huh?) i bought a pond pump to get all the water out and we'll be using it to make a little waterfall when it's all nice and clean. anyway....in the process of cleaning it all out, we've discovered that we have one ginormous frog. it's at least as big as my fist. really grosses me out. so, when i saw a bunch of little guys swimming at the bottom of the pond, i assumed they were tadpoles and we would have little frogs jumping around every where soon. they were still in the long tail, little back legs stage. well, i'm dumb. they're actually newts! so we're saving them in a bucket and are going to dump most of them in the creek down the street. there are just too many for our little pond. so i feel really smart now!

newt on the left, tadpole on the right













here's our pond, mostly drained and still full of yucky sludge.