There's a scene in Northern Exposure (I loved that show) where Ed sits at the bar and tells Shelly how guilty he feels about the frogs he killed when he was a boy. Shelly tells Ed to ask for God's forgiveness, so he'll still be able to go to heaven, and Ed says, "Oh . . . but what about the frogs?"Maybe they ended up in reincarnated in The Woods. We seem to have an abundance of frogs and toads around here. Everyone knows about the peepers-- those cross-bearing harbingers of spring-- but there's also the American bullfrog, American toad, Fowler's toad (you may remember from an earlier post), Eastern Spadefoot, the gray, green, leopard, pickerel, and wood frogs. Shew.
Bella seems to think there are froggers living under the wooden ramp to our basement and fantasizes about squeezing herself under there. Fortunately for the frogs, she'll have to be content with just stuffing her nose at them.
I mentioned the rubberbandy-sounding frog we hear on our walk by the pond. That's a green frog. You can hear it here. Isn't the internet full of fabulosity?
Our farmer neighbor told R that a frog man checked out his pond and said that he was very lucky to have the pickerel frog hanging out there. That's a pickerel in the picture. Pickerels are super sensitive to pollution and will only thrive in pristine-ish waters. My tiny bit of research proves that guy right. I also discovered that the frog got its name because fishermen use it to catch pickerel, the fish.
It makes me very happy to know that our waters are so clean, as our lake feeds into our neighbor's pond.
If you have a minute, check out all of the frog calls. Some of them are incredibly bird-like; maybe that's to disguise them and keep them safe from the little Eds and Bellas of the world.
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