Newts

In our backyard are three barrels that had goldfish in them when we moved in. It was time to clean out some of the sludge that had settled to the bottom of the barrels, add little fountains to oxygenate the water for the fish, and replace the lining in the one leaky barrel.

Suddenly, a creature swam to the top of the water. It was a newt! And then there was another! This was big news in the Nylund house.

Just 2 months before we learned we would be moving to Germany, Micaela asked for a newt for her birthday. All we needed to do was make the 5-minute trip to our local Petsmart to buy all the supplies, and, eventually, the newt.

The only problem was water temperature. Newts like cool water and newt people in the U.S. usually keep their tanks in their basements. We didn't have a basement and Micaela's room tended to be warmer than the rest of the house.

David loves a challenge.

He came up with the idea himself of using an actual water cooler to get the right temperature. Micaela got her newt which disappeared just a few days later. Newts are known for being escape artists. Then, we found out we were moving, so we told Micaela she could get a newt in Germany.

David did a little research and learned what we found was probably an Alpine newt which was living temporarily in our barrel for mating purposes.

Unfortunately, it is illegal to take newts out of the wild. And we have yet to find a newt at a pet store here and haven't come across a way to order one. So this would need to be the extent of our newt keeping for the moment.

We all gawked at the newts and then had to put them back into the barrel, where they seemed unhappy that David had cleaned out most of the sludge.

It would be great if we could find lots of baby newts in one of our barrels soon.