Look what we found:)!!!

We were given some frog spawn from a friend's garden severl years ago and we were able to watch them change into frogs.  We had pretty good success with 14 out the of the 20 eggs hatching.   The kids wanted the frogs to remain in the yard so we decided to build a small frog pond -- go here to see the whole frog story if you like.  You will also see have big my kids have grown, sniff sniff:).

Anyway, much to the children's dismay once the frogs were released they high tailed it out of here (smart frogs, I think as they would never have had any peace) and we never saw one again.  Just this week I was thinking I was going to have to dig up that pond and refill it with soil since we are moving and we are renting this property.  When we went out to examine the pond we saw this.....

We are pretty sure it is a Newt

We only found the one--but more could be hiding...

We spent the morning researching the find on the web and have decided we think it is a female  Palmate Newt based on the coloring on its underside.  The kids read that the reason we ended up with a newt in our small pond was that they prefer smaller water holes with no fish, lots of leaves and stones for hiding places.  Our little pond has all these things and makes for the perfect habit for this little one.

So for now our little pond is staying put.  I will need to see what the landlord wants to do, hopefully he will like the idea of a little pond and allow the newt to stay.  Otherwise I will need to locate a new pond for the thing, as if I don't have enough things to do before we move:)!