Frog Exit Ramp

The "Freedom Hop Highway"

the problem

	frogs that get into the pool are unable to get out

the materials

	plywood
	permanent marker
	3 wood screws
	frogs... lots and lots of frogs

now while we have only lived in our new home for 2 springs, i think it's safe to say that a trend has developed here. each year around mid april we have frogs that seem to migrate in from the east. at first you can only hear them, but within a few days they start showing up... all over... for a month... and i'm not talking about just a frog here and there. i mean seriously, it's like i'm the pharaoh of central avenue in egypt and have 40,000 israelis camped out in my back yard all of the sudden. what is the deal?

anyway, many of these little fellas end up in our pool and have no way to get out. now while kc finds it in her heart to scoop them out and place them next to a bush or something, i typically treat them like a russian space dog and and give them a one way ride over the fence. either way, they* keep ending up in the pool. (*by they i mean the species... i don't think the majority of my cosmonaut frogs ever come back) as a result, each morning and evening i find myself scooping anywhere between 3 and 5 more frogs out of the pool. this is where the inspiration for this edition of "incredible creations" is born.

the solution

	proving once again that sometimes the
	best ideas are the most simple ones, i decided to create a floating exit ramp.

	so, i cut a piece of plywood into a 20'' x 5'' rectangle. from there i attached 2 pieces of wood. the first piece was for added buoyancy and the second served as an anchor. each piece was pre-drilled and attached with wood screws

	next i gave kc a permanent marker and
	asked her to "think like a frog" and write some instructions. this is what she came up with.

	"FROGS: Exit Ramp #1572 from pool"
	"NO TOLL REQUIRED"
	"Freedom Hop Hwy"

	convinced that was clear enough for a frog of average intelligence, we put our incredible creation to the test.

	so we "installed" our ramp in the shallow
	end of the pool and started to wait.

	as you can see, the beautifully designed ramp works exactly as planned. the tail end submerges about 2 inches before it starts to float above the first step in the pool.

around 9:00 pm i was fading in and out of a nap during the nba playoffs when we had our first "test frog" enter the pool. i was so excited that i grabbed my camera to record the action

one thing i learned here is that frogs are a lot like crickets - every time you get near one, they stop doing whatever it was they were doing. very frustrating for the engineers of the "freedom hop highway".

anyway, around 10:15 i looked out the den window and saw that our "test frog" had found the ramp and was pretty much just chillin.

i waited... and waited... and waited... but dude pretty much just wanted to hang. so i went into the garage to get some dog food and by the time i came back...

dude had vanished! angry that i had missed the moment i went on a frog safari. within minutes i found a/the frog and made him pose for the picture on the right.

as you can see, he is thrilled.

despite all this success however, i was still somewhat skeptical as to how this device and it's incredible design would fare over time. after all, we are dealing frogs here.

so i left the ramp in and went to bed somewhere in the middle of the pacers v celtics overtime game. when i got up the next morning i went down to the pool right away to find... NOTHING! that's right, for the first time in 2 weeks there were no frogs in the pool. therefore, either pharaoh let his people go, or my amazing frog ramp works. you decide.

Frog Exit Ramp

The "Freedom Hop Highway"

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