She started to dance and dance, wriggling and squirming all over the ground until she eventually tied herself into a knot.
He just sat there with his big belly full of all the water.įinally, the snake decided to try and make Tiddalick laugh. It was so funny that she burst out laughing! But Tiddalick didn’t laugh. She perched herself on a branch close to Tiddalick and told her funniest story. The next animal to try and make Tiddalick laugh was the kookaburra. The wombat stood up on his hind legs and danced around in a circle until he fell over in the dirt! The Galah laughed and so did the goanna, but Tiddalick didn’t laugh. The next animal to try and make Tiddalick laugh was the wombat. She rolled herself up into a tight little ball and rolled down the bank of the billabong like a bowling ball! The kangeroo laughed and so did the emu, but Tiddalick didn’t laugh. The first animal to try and make him laugh was the echidna. If they could make him laugh then all the water would come spilling out of his mouth and back into the billabong!
They thought and they thought and they thought until they realised that the best way to get the water back was to make Tiddalick laugh. They knew they needed to come up with a plan to get the water back, but they didn’t know how. They knew Tiddalick the frog had drunk all the water.
When the other animals arrived at the billabong to get their morning drink, they found it was all dried up. He drank and he drank and he kept drinking until all the fresh water in the entire billabong was gone! One very warm morning, he woke up with feeling very, very thirsty and started to drink the fresh water. Tiddalick was the largest frog in the entire world. The frog is also decorated in jewels, befitting his royalty.Once upon a time, a long time ago, in the Dreamtime, lived a frog called Tiddalick. Mordasky, 70, of Stafford, used acrylic paints to create her green creature, adorned with red, gold and black trim. "As much as I've done all of these years, I've never done anything big." "It was new and exciting," Mordasky said. "So I figured the collage was the next best thing." Because of delays and time constraints, Manso doesn't think her frog will be ready for the parade, but "Precious Prince Willi" has been on display inside the Savings Institute for a month.Įdwinna Jill Mordasky, a painting teacher, presented Prince Willi to the town in May, in time for the start of the summer street festivals. "It looked great on paper but it didn't work out," she said. A photographer for United Natural Foods, Manso said her first idea, covering the frog with 5- by 7-inch photographs using liquid emulsion, didn't work. Manso is transferring the mill photos onto pieces of fabric and then gluing the fabric onto the frog.
And it's so sad because no one cares about them and they're a big dilapidated mess," Manso said. "I just love all the mills that are around here. Her plan is to cover the frog in black-and-white photographs of mills. Manso is working hard to complete her frog, named Sam in honor of Samuel Slater, an industrial pioneer from England. The rounded shape and intricate curves of the frogs have proven difficult to decorate.īut Homick hopes to have at least a dozen of the frogs, and maybe more, completed by the end of August. The Savings Institute on Main Street has been the biggest sponsor so far, contributing $10,000 for the first frog, "Precious Prince Willi."Īrtists were selected from 15 towns in Connecticut and Vermont to decorate the frogs, but they, too, have had problems. The town is recuperating and hopefully the arts are contributing to the rejuvenation." When the mills closed, it basically pulled the rug out from the whole economy. "It's a very depressed region of the state. "We just had a very difficult time doing any fundraising," Homick said. Shackway said the group has raised about 85 percent of the $50,000 it needs to break even. The United Way has raised enough money for about a dozen frogs, and is looking for more contributions for the rest. Homick said she originally wanted 20 frog sculptures on display around town, but the groups have run into problems and delays with fundraising and manufacturing the frogs.