Ours have got to be the most blissed-out, trusting amphibians on the planet. Bisou, whose obsession with them continues unabated, will come streaking out the back door looking for them. If she's lucky, one will be sunning itself on the slate slabs, and she runs over and nudges it with her nose. The frog then gives one or two desultory hops, Bisou gives it another nudge, the frog hops again, and so on until it reaches the edge of the pond and dives in.
Bisou then runs around the perimeter of the pond, looking for frogs that are clinging to the pond's edge or to a close-by lilypad. She leans way over, her ears waving like algae in the scummy water, until she can touch noses with a frog (sometimes she falls in). Eventually she wearies of this game and goes off to graze. (What, doesn't your dog gorge on grass?)
One or two frogs will then do their amazing frog kick to the side of the pond and heave themselves out of the water, looking like members of a swimming team at the end of practice. Periodically, one of them lets out a croak that sounds like a rubber band snapping against a drum head. In the low rays of the setting sun, the frogs shine like jewels, green enamel from the waist up, burnished copper from the waist down. If I get close enough I can look right into their golden eyes.
In the forest of mint behind me a toad is singing its not-quite-birdsong. I have never seen this toad, but I know it's there. I made a house for it by leaning a piece of slate against the low board that borders the garden, and it's repaying me by keeping the area mosquito-free (though I have the frogs to thank for this too).
The sun has finally gone, leaving a red streak in the western horizon. It's too dark to read, and getting chilly. I pick up my book, call Bisou, and head indoors. In the darkness behind me, plop! another swimmer dives in.
Gosh I love reading your blog! I am right there when you write (can you feel me breathing down your neck as I try to see what you are reading?)
ReplyDeleteThose frog are so great...I almost bought some HUGE tad poles at the garden center yesterday, but my "pond" is a shallow bowl that sits nicely in the fire pit during the summer. I am afraid the sun would be too hot in shallowness for either frog or fish, so I am envious of your bug eaters. I did however score on some pond plants that are suppose to work in my little bit of water. Floaters, they call them. A water lettuce, a Hyacinth and something labeled simply "aerator" that looks like the end of a fresh grown pine tip in the spring.
OOOooh, I also meant to say how cute that one frog is on the shoulder of your sculpture!
ReplyDeleteJaimie, those "floaters" will help keep the water cool. Besides, if there's thick vegetation nearby, the frogs can hide in it during the hottest parts of the day. You might want to try a couple of those bullfrog tadpoles.
ReplyDeleteWhat was I reading? It was Proust, whom I reread every ten years or so, as a brain exercise. That's probably why I was paying so much attention to the frogs.
In French? How I envy your many languages!
ReplyDeleteOui...strangely enough, I find Proust impossible to read in English translation.
ReplyDeletei hear the peepers singing like mad in the mornings as i walk around the lake. and some day i'm getting myself a frog planter, with a hollowed-out back for flowers.
ReplyDeleteI hadn't thought of those planters in ages. At first I thought you meant a flowerpot in which one planted frogs....
ReplyDelete"These long, sunny evenings I sit by the pond with a book and a glass of wine"
ReplyDeleteFrogs or no frogs, how perfect.
Mali, you know how the human mind/heart works: if I had to sit there with book and wine but no frogs, having known the pleasure of their company, I would feel terribly deprived.
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