As the temperatures continue to drop you will begin to notice that your pond, once full of life, is now starting to look like abandoned arctic tundra. Gone are the cool summer nights spent on your patio and deck watching fireflies tastefully illuminate your lawn while being serenaded by a choir of frogs and crickets.

While you are inside cuddled under blankets for the season where do your web-footed friends spend their winter? The winter retreat of choice will depend on the type of frog you have hanging around your pond. You will commonly find either some variety of frog frequenting the shallow areas or shoreline of your pond and toads farther inland rummaging about your gardens or front lawn. Both are very similar but can usually be identified by a few visual characteristics.

Brad Minnick was raised on a farm in Northern MO and told his parents that farming isn't what he wanted to do. He started working at the age of 15 at a golf course. His career kept him in the golf industry for 20 years working at various courses as a golf superintendent. From there he went to Lawrence and started working with Capitol Concrete, he received a Bachelor's degree in Plant Science and as his career continued with CCP, hardscapes became his specialty.

Brad has worked on various sized projects from small to extreme. An example would be Free State High School & Lawrence High School - both projects included a stadium bleacher section made from Versa-Lock blocks - 130,000 of them!! Versa-Lock has a 50-80 year life time as opposed to concrete which can chip and crack. The block project turned out to be more cost effective than aluminum bleachers. Bob Saathoff said he has been to Free State and it really is an awesome display of what can be done with blocks in a hardscape.

Kip Walker gave an interesting power point presentation at the July TAWGS meeting when he talked about new technology for rain gardens and rain harvesting.

Kip said that he has been working with Eric Wood with Complete Aquatics to learn the leading edge of technology in that area. He said a lot of new technology has been developed in recent years because of the increased interest in reducing storm water run off, especially in larger cities, and in improving the water quality of the water that ends up in our waterways.

One way to reduce water runoff from roofs is to place a rain barrel under the down spouts of the house. One half inch of rain falling on a roof can easily fill a 55 gallon rain barrel. The barrel not only helps reduce the amount of water that is dumped into the storm water system, it also allows it to be harvested later for watering plants and landscapes, providing two benefits for the homeowner.

Wendy Hix and her helper Mary Bailey gave a very interesting talk about fish health at the May TAWGS meeting. They are from the Kansas City area. Wendy said that she had been in the business for eight years but she has been keeping koi for 15 years. Mary is a koi keeper and has attended many seminars and meetings on fish health.

Both are serious koi keepers, saying they both have had fish that were worth $5,000 die. At that point, I think most of us realized that we aren't quite that serious about our fish.