Ants and frogs?

I mowed the back lawn, otherwise known as the meadow, the grass having reached a foot high. Correction, I have half mown the lawn - the mower jammed so often and cut out that I gave up.

I have a pond - when the the grass is low you can even get to it!  The pond has frogs, and therefore so does my long grass meadow of a back lawn. When mowing the grass was moving and I would kick through it to encourage the frogs and froglets to move away from the danger.  On the other hand I found in the long grass impressively tall ants' nests - and broke them and added anti-ant powder. Why the difference?

Both ants and frogs are part of nature's ecosystem, yet I seek to save one and to kill the other - why? and how did I decide one has more value that the other, at least to me?  Am I simply a sucker for seeing the weak but determined froglets jumping away from the mower? Maybe. The vulnerable have a way of drawing our hearts (and I'm sorry but the ants are too small to feel for, despite watching 'A Bug's Life').

The other thing I noticed was the tendency of the frogs to jump away towards other long grass, not understanding the mower would follow them there. Whereas safety was actually in the scary openness of the section just mown/mangled.   How often do we retreat into the familiar when life is tough when actually life and hope may be in the places that seem more risky and scary?  And will we find the bravery to jump into the open?