This time of year our backyard goldfish pond is teeming with tadpoles. It's also overgrown with stringy algae, so much so that the pond filter has to be rinsed out on a daily basis. I have a pool net I can use to scoop out the goop, but if my eight-year-old son is watching, he insists that I make sure that any tadpoles that are scooped up are released back into the pond.

This rather slows down the process of dealgifying the pond, and I find, as I carefully rescue the tads from the net and watch them swim away, each one like a plump watermelon seed with a whip-like tail, that I keep humming that song from "Monty Python's The Meaning of Life."