Saturday, August 27, 2011

Great! Now how do I get the frogs out? UPDATE II

Grey water pump replaced on Thursday sometime. Burnt out from electrical short.  $390 paid for by house insurance. Hurrah.

While the pump wasn't working I was able to siphon the water out, took a while to get it started, but managed it fine last weekend. It was getting  fuller and fuller (even being careful not to use too much water and wash too many loads).

When  I set up the siphon I had to let it go for a few hours to drain all the water out, this was OK during the weekend when I was home, but I didn't  like leaving the lid off the grey water tank during the day in case anything fell in so couldn't siphon much in the morning, and in the afternoon I got home after 5 so didn't have much daylight to use the siphon. There are plenty of bandicoots around (and hares), and I didn't want any of them falling into the grey water tank so had to not leave the lid off for the siphon to work after dark. There was never enough time for the water to completely drain out during the week.

One day, after I'd left the lid open after dark, I noticed that there were some puffed-up floating frogs in the tank. They look like burrowing frogs. Poor little things, they're dead as mullets. When the electrician replaced the grey water pump he didn't clean them out.

So, how do I get the dead frogs out now?

UPDATE:

Phoned the Backyard Craftsman across the street  to see if he could fashion me a dead frog scoop from some dowel I have and a tin can with holes in the bottom of it. I bought two pairs of lovely shoes  today (cheap as chips from Rivers), and wanted to show them to Mrs Craftsman who also bought some shoes in Toowoomba this week. I popped over with the dowel and explained that the can would be forthcoming - as soon as I emptied what was in the can...

Mr Craftsman gave me a net they'd purchased to catch geckos (didn't work, little buggers are way too fast - won't have that trouble with the grey water tank frogs).

He told me I could  extend the handle by taping on the dowel if I needed to. I said that if they heard me splashing around and shouting out (((((help, get me out of here, help!))))), that he should come over to help.

He replied "Nah. Wouldn't do any good. I don't have a big enough net."

UPDATE II:

Okay. I do a load of washing (towels), and go outside with the net  to see if I can scoop the dead frogs out of the grey water tank.

Lifting the concrete lid of the tank I see no frogs!! Eek.  They've sunk. But there is a small dead mouse in there. Scoop. Gone.

*sigh*

1 comment:

Merilyn said...

What do you need????? A very looooooong scoop!!!!!