It's Spring Somewhere

I know...real frogs don't have red lips.
(Norfolk Botanical Garden... greenhouse)

"A light exists in Spring
Not present in the year
at any other period
When March is scarcely here."
~ Emily Dickinson

It's an in between day... not really cold enough to huddle under a thick blanket in front of the fire and certainly not like yesterday with its cold northwest wind blowing at a good clip... but, not really warm enough to roll up your sleeves and start digging in the dirt either. No, its an in between day... in between those yo-yo oscillations that are common in March. The swampy preserve is filled with water from our one inch of rain from Sunday and the branches of the still bare trees reflect in the quiet surface of what will certainly soon become the nursery for millions of mosquitoes. Now though, it is home to the mallard pair... quietly paddling around and stopping only occasionally to plunge their heads below that murky mess looking for food. It IS almost that time.. when waterfowl pair up and eggs are deposited and little fuzzy ducklings are spotted marching across the way in long lines with the nursery workers in strategic spots keeping all the new life together.

Anyway... you get the picture... not cold, not hot... still jacket weather... and then... "Grrrooookee...grrroke....grrroke"... that certainly doesn't sound like the high pitched twittering and tweeting (real tweeting) from the birds that have now moved to other yards since I have not cleaned the feeders and put them back in place. (I had to take them down because of the 50 mph winds that came through last week) What could it be... I listened and then.. of course. It's the beginning of frog season. Not quite as low in tone as the bullfrog, but not high like the tiny tree frog either. The sound is coming from the preserve and no, I am not going to put on waders and venture out into the primordial sludge that more than likely holds at least one snake beneath its black surface.. no, I will not risk finding the quicksand that surely must exist there, simply to try and find the singing frog and photograph him. It would be an exercise in futility as he would shut his mouth as soon as my black boots made the first clumping splash in the water. (These are the same oversized boots that became mired down in the muddy swamp that was my rose garden until we had proper drainage put in... and believe me... you must thank your lucky stars that you didn't have that scene burned into your retinas... a mud covered.... mumble year old woman.. stuck in the ground up to her knees...I did get out.. but the boots stayed there until I could find something to grab them and they let go with a wet sucking sound.... anyway, another time, another place.)

It was nice to hear the sounds of life in the swamp... at least, sounds other than those of the birds. Not that I don't love the sounds of the birds, but there is something about that symphony of ribbits and croaks that fill the spring nights, that cannot be explained in words. I distinctly heard a duet.. lower tone and a mid to higher one... the early "first chairs" getting the songs ready for full orchestration.

So, since I am not a swamp creature and the frogs are not beating a path to my back door to have their countenances preserved in pixels for all time... this colorful counterfeit creature will have to do, even though he would never be mistaken for the real thing... real frogs don't have red lips. Everyone knows that! If they did, then they would leave red kiss marks on all those women who kiss frogs attempting to find their prince! And that would simply NOT be right!

(end of post)
Ruby Tuesday