“Climb up my rain barrel, slide down my cellar door and we’ll be friends forevermore.” So went one of the first songs I learned as a small child. Another song was Tex Ritter’s Walkin’ the Floor Over You. But that’s neither here nor there.
Yesterday when I was at Matt and Dawn’s house, she said, “Come around to the back yard, Blanche. I want you to see this.” And there, inside her rain barrel were dozens of small, black swimming objects: tadpoles! Or polliwogs! Anyway, baby frogs.
Frogs were very busy this year all over town. We heard them at night and sometimes during the day singing their gravelly songs. Now there’ll be a whole new crop next year. Good news! That means they have survived pesticides, birds, snakes, and whatever other dangers lie in wait for them and will be animated mosquito catchers. That’s a good thing.
Another great little mosquito catcher that we need more of is the dragonfly. And barn swallows. These natural predators do a whole lot more than pesticides which tend to kill butterflies, honeybees, bumblebees and birds while the mosquitoes grow immune to chemicals. When will we learn?
Anyway, I was fascinated by those little swimming pre-frogs. Soon they’ll lose their tails, grow legs, and hop off to conquer new horizons. What miracles they are! They start as one thing and become something else. God’s world as He made it, is ever fascinating, orderly, and it works!
In Darcy and Flora’s new home on Granny Grace’s acreage, there are plenty of frogs. Also there are honeybees and katydids, lots of birds, and trees which are not pruned to look like anything but a tree. I hope you hop on over to Levi and make their acquaintance.
So true! We used to have a drainage ditch along the back of our yard and we could hear the frogs especially in the evening hours. Now instead of a farmer’s field behind us, we have a new development of houses. No longer hear so many frogs and no longer see the sun setting!
I guess that’s called progress, Sharon, but to me it isn’t progress, it’s going backward. We are encroaching on little wild creatures and they have not many places left to go. Thanks for writing.