Checking the Frog Puddles

A particularly handsome American toad.

The summer posts will keep coming for awhile. My laptop is back at Apple, having given about twenty high-pitched death wails in a row (a nerve-jangling experience) before I removed the battery and silenced it. I'm working off a small reservoir of photos, now undoubtedly consigned to eternity, that I uploaded before the hard drive committed hara-kiri. Best case scenario will see it back here with its hard drive erased...again. I've got 40 days remaining on my 3-year AppleCare contract, pffft. Everybody make a little sacrifice to the technology gods for me. I'm working on Old Slow, who tries but can't do much any more, as her operating system is too old to accept upgrades. She says they hurt. But enough about me and my screwed up computer. Boooring. Frogs and toads, frogs and toads.

Bluebirds aren’t all we check on our rounds. This has been such a wonderful wet summer that our frog puddles on the oilwell access road have been stocked with taddies all season. Green, wood, mountain chorus frog, spring peeper, Cope’s gray treefrog and American toads have all successfully fledged from their muddy depths. Heavenly! You hear so much bad news about frogs lately I thought I'd pass along some good news.

The kids love to go look. In a concession to the abundant ticks on our place this year, they don kneesocks.

Liam was adamant that I not photograph him in red kneesocks, as he did not appreciate my observation that he strongly recalls Christopher Robin when he wears them. So I shot him from the back, to preserve his dignity, at least for the moment.



A child can get lost in a puddle, watching the tadpoles surface for a quick gulp of air, watching the water striders skitter on its thin skin.



Perhaps Indigo Hill’s teeny-weeniest vertebrate: a newly metamorphosed spring peeper.

If there’s a smaller spined soul on the place, the Science Chimp has yet to catalogue it.

A soul so small, yet to itself so dear (paraphrasing Bobby Burns).

Liam eventually relaxed his no-photos policy enough to make some goofy jumps while I crouched at ground level, hooting in delight. The Bacon joined in, but his leaps were somewhat less spectacular.



Phoebe’s “Let’s Go Bananas” t-shirt seems particularly appropriate. Here’s to kids who are willing to make beautiful fools of themselves. May they grow up into adults who feel likewise.