Tag Archive | Northern leopard frog

Apologies

Jun6
A female oriole showed up at the hummingbird feeder so I quickly pulled out the oriole feeder and hung it.

Apologies for the cryptic post the other day! Thanks to those who were paying attention and inquired about it. It took awhile to figure out what happened. The day before my most recent post, I had tried to post some photos from the WordPress app on my phone, with the title ‘Attention.’ No text, just some pictures. The next day I saw that it had not gone through, so I added a few more pictures and posted ‘Surrounded by Life.’ Somehow, a few days later, the empty ‘Attention’ post showed up out of the ethers.

The sad finale to the robin nest, found on the patio later the very day I reached into the nest to find it empty.

The oriole came to its special feeder after a couple of days, and the male flew by, but then they were gone.
Where’s Wren?

The little dog alerted me to a mouse in the pantry the other night. I couldn’t bear to kill it, so I brought in and baited the live-trap with a pinch of havarti stuck on with a peanut butter smear. In the morning an adorable big-eyed deer mouse fluttered around when Wren woke it. I was pretty sure where it came from and how it got in the house, so I released it back home. Then I made sure the screen door was latched or the glass door closed so it couldn’t sneak back in through the gap that occasionally opens with a breeze. Old doors.

The Palmer’s penstemon is wild this year. I was happy to hear from a friend to whom I’d given seeds a few years ago: “THANK YOU SO MUCH for the Palmer’s penstemon seeds! They’ve exploded this year!! And the pollinators love them.”

The next night the mouse was back. This time I released it up at the woodshed, hoping it would find enough distraction there. The next night it was back again. Again I released it up the hill, and then watched all doors like a cat all day. Wren fixated in the pantry again, so I guessed it was back. I have no qualms about killing mice but it’s getting harder to do it.

I don’t even mind the mice themselves, it’s their… residue. Especially in light of recent hantavirus news. (And, shades of the nightmare I went through after the Housesitter from Hell.) One little mouse doesn’t pose much risk of the virus, but does leave unfortunate traces, everywhere. So I set the snap trap.

That night when I went up to bed, Wren pointed to the curtain rod over the French door onto the deck. There was a mouse on top of the drape! I opened the door and tried to shoo it out, but it escaped into the stairs.

The next morning, there was our little mouse friend, dead in the trap, his bright big eyes wide open. I set him atop a fence post for a bird to carry off. Apologies.

I’m grateful for so many bumblebees, all over the penstemon. This is the biggest one I’ve ever seen.

Imagine my surprise the next night when once again there was a mouse atop the upstairs drape! Where are they coming from? How many more?

This morning at the pond was rich with wild life. A garter snake cruised the edge, an ash-throated flycatcher hunted from above.

The pond floor is covered with tiny tadpoles, and last year’s frogs are growing. I spotted this one before Wren did. I’m not sure she even saw it until it jumped while she drank.

May all beings be well, and happy. May all beings be safe and free from harm. May all beings awaken and be free.

Thanks to my friend Ted Leach for sharing this quote. See his blog for what Wilson meant by these three observations.

Frog Rescue

May28

As always, I am ever so grateful for morning coffee with a sweet treat. It’s especially sweet these days, on the patio with the fragrant jasmine on one side, and busy hummingbirds on the other, the mountain vista beyond the blooming garden. Just this past couple of days all the June flowers are starting to open. In the woods, the claret cups have been blooming for weeks. They are so early I almost missed them. Grateful I took a couple of long walks last week, before plantar fasciitis curtailed our strolls.

Last week I noticed the robin did not fly when I opened the door. Then I noticed there was no robin at the nest all day. I waited a couple of days then used a stepladder to hold my camera over the nest. I feel very sad that they abandoned their eggs. I’ve seen one of them back at the bird bath a few times, and hope they have a spare nest going somewhere else.

“When we see someone suffering, whether they are physically injured or suffering a significant loss, we instantly have compassion regardless of how we felt about them just moments before. Imagine how you would treat others if you knew, not only that they may not be here tomorrow, but also of the suffering and hardship they have had to endure in their lifetime.”

MLP Daily Guidance May 26, 2026

I wondered why this butterfly was motionless as I took its picture. I moved it with a light touch to get a better angle, and didn’t realize what was happening til I saw the picture. I couldn’t save this butterfly, nor would I have even tried: The spider deserves her hard-won meal. I did feel a rush of compassion for her.

Wren stalking a bumblebee

I saved a frog from a snake today. Not something I’d normally interfere with but I couldn’t not this time. I’d been sitting by the pond enjoying a glass of cool tap water and reading on Kindle while Wren wandered around sniffing and looking for frogs. A movement caught both our eyes and I asked her to leave it. We watched a scene under a slab rock on the rim that neither of us — well, I can’t speak for her, with her keen senses she probably knew what was going on long before I did — but I couldn’t quite see well enough through the screen of curly rush and in the dark under the rock to be sure what was happening. The motion had been sudden, and I heard a frog. As I watched, I could see the frog move incrementally toward the light, and it was calling. But not a regular call, it sounded urgent.

Not the drama scene of today, but an update on the eggs. They’ve all released their tiny tadpoles but I’m not seeing them in the water like I did last year.

I wondered if a snake had it, but I could see most of the frog. It hopped forward a couple of times incrementally. Then it seemed to retreat. Then it hopped forward and flopped over onto its back, legs splayed. Maybe its foot was caught between rocks? I stepped around the pond and reached down to take gentle hold of the frog; only then could I see the snake holding onto the frog’s foot. It was a smallish garter snake; the frog was good-sized. Yes, the snake deserves its meal also, but given the size discrepancy and starting with the foot, it would have been a long, slow, agonizing death for the frog. Holding her in my right hand, I touched a left fingertip to the back of the snake’s jaw and pried ever so gently. In a second it let go and the frog flipped out of my hand and flew two feet to plop into the water. In that moment I felt more alive than I have in weeks.

I invested in some food-producing shrubs last week, including two honeyberries, a Saskatoon serviceberry, and a Chicago hardy fig. I misheard on the radio that Lance was growing one outdoors that survived that hard freeze last month, so I planted mine in a raised bed yesterday morning, carefully relocating the tulip bulbs I displaced. Then I called into the show last night realized my mistake: around here people grow them in greenhouses. Oh well! I did read that they should be able to survive winter in this zone by wrapping in blankets after they shed their leaves in the fall. Maybe I’ll decide to dig her up and pot her to bring in. We’ll know more later! I snipped off the four little figs she had so she could send all her energy to growing roots.

I’m grateful for the feral chamomile blooming among the flagstones, and its light scent in the evening.

Savoring Small Things

Apr29

I’m enjoying the new NYT game Crossplay. I was never a Scrabble fan for a few reasons, which playing at my own pace with a perfectly matched computer resolves. I love playing with words, and I usually beat it on the medium level. However, I have to consider the impact of playing with AI on the environment, and that makes me sad. I’m grateful I could persuade my Connections buddy, who had a similar aversion to Scrabble, to play me online. It’s a slow game, we each make roughly one play a day, but we’re well matched, and I don’t feel aggressively competitive with her as I do with the computer.

A forgotten cheese sandwich from last week: that gift bacon, and gift calamondin jam, plus mayo, mustard, garden lettuce, Bad Dog fried egg, and havarti on the last square of homemade focaccia.

May Day! May Day! May Day has historically been a day of union and immigrant support, at least in recent US history, and this Friday will be the Mother of All May Days: ‘No school, no work, no shopping.’ We can hope an economic blackout will wake up another layer of complacent Americans to the urgent threat to our country, indeed to the entire planet. Stay home or join a community action to resist the regime, and whatever you do don’t spend any money.

I thought this was funny in the window at intake admin at the hospital when I went for a routine mammogram last week, but in this moment I can’t help but relate it to the lunatic in the White House. Whatever the motivation for the shooting at the Correspondents’ Dinner, no matter; I was deeply disappointed not to get insight from the Great OZ into the mind of the madman, and I hoped that the mentalist might deliver a message that scared some iota of sense or perspective into him. “He’s tainted so much,” a friend said yesterday, but I heard “He’s taken so much.” Either way. When you look back at the relentless string of assaults on the constitution, the rule of law, the American people in general and marginalized people in particular, other sovereign nations, and the life blood of the planet, it becomes more unfathomable every day that Congress, the governors, somebody, doesn’t just MAKE IT STOP FFS! I saw that phrase on an ex-boyfriend’s Facebook post the other day, and marveled at how decades and miles apart we are of the exact same mind. We the people have got to be the ones to make it stop.

I stopped in at Afton’s on the way home from the mammogram to pick up a few more plants, and stepped into the rose tent simply to breathe the heavenly air for a few minutes, and to feast my eyes on beauty.

Afternoon at the pond, the frogs are softly singing… please play the recording below

If You Bake It They Will Come

Oct27

Working on perfecting the blueberry cinnamon roll. A batch last week from a new recipe didn’t satisfy me though the people I shared it with weren’t so particular. The dough was a little tough and there wasn’t enough filling. The batch I made yesterday had too much filling, but I’m closing in on perfection.

A new tiny friend made a surprise visit Saturday and was entranced with Biko, the first turtle she’s ever met in her whole life. When she was ready, she touched him ever so gently on the top of his shell. Then we took her to the pond, where she spotted her first ever frog. There is still at least one tadpole swimming around, and a few growing juveniles out even after a freeze the night before, and one brand new fingertip froglet on land. I sent them home with the last two rolls of Batch Number One.

I delivered a couple of rolls from Batch Number Two to the Honey Badger at the top of the driveway last night, so we could enjoy one with coffee this morning separately in our own homes together on Zoom. I was planning to deliver most of the rest to a few more neighbors today, but they disappeared before I could do that.

I’m a night owl and don’t see too many sunrises, so I was grateful for the extra motivation to rise in time to catch the morning clouds with the sun just behind Mendicant Ridge. I wish I could want to get out of bed while it’s still dark.

Yarden Helper came unexpectedly with a load of firewood, so I gave him three rolls to take home for his family, knowing that would brighten their day. Remembering the unattributable quote, “Be kind. Everyone you meet is carrying a heavy burden,” or another version, “Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about.”

He was heading next to Garden Buddy’s so I gave him two for them, and suddenly, without ever having to leave the driveway, I was down to just enough to sustain me until I muster the motivation to tackle Batch Number Three. I’m grateful for the practice of generosity, a natural accompaniment to the gratitude and grief slow dancing inside me.

I can’t share the recipe for the rolls because I used three of them plus a couple of innovations. But most of the recipes I checked involved brushing the rolled dough with softened butter.

I wasn’t happy with the one cup of whole blueberries in Batch One, so I made a quick jam with two cups, but cooked it down too much, so threw in another handful of blueberries. It might have been ok if I’d only used half of it, or if I hadn’t put lemon zest in it as well as lemon juice.

The brown sugar – cinnamon mix was adequate, but I’ve been including some cardamom and the next batch will have only cinnamon.

Clearly it was too much filling!

And I’ll need to practice my glazing technique before I enter any contests, but at least it’s tasty. And I’m grateful I was still around for sunset.

Tomato Night

Sep6

I woke this morning and considered how all the conditions of my mostly contented life have been dependent on tens of thousands of beings, human and otherwise. I’m grateful that this reflection has become habitual. I intended to focus on my blessings and sift attention away from my sufferings. But one negative thought led to another and I was soon swept onto a bad train and carried far from my intention.

Baking molasses cookies and then exercising for an hour with Mel both helped derail the glum train, and then a long meditation reset my perspective back on the right track. Just in time for zoom cooking with Amy.

It was so good to see her, it’s been a while. We started Tomato Night with a spontaneous tomato martini. We smashed a couple of cherry tomatoes into the shaker with a splash of balsamic vinegar, a pinch of salt, and the regular gin and vermouth, with another cherry tomato for garnish.

While eight ounces of cherry tomatoes roasted with olive oil and salt (for tomato butter), we mixed pesto with cream cheese and cut puff pastry to bake upside down tarts. Sliced tomatoes lay on parchment paper drizzled with olive oil and balsamic awaiting their pastry tops.

A quick egg wash, and into the oven for twenty minutes. While they baked we pulsed the roasted cherry tomatoes with salt and pepper, and mashed them with softened butter.

The tarts came out perfect, and we flipped them over to serve.

I toasted a slice of sourdough to dip in the butter, Amy had ciabatta. We sat down together miles apart for dinner. I’m grateful for the anchor of awareness flowing through the day, for the ability to consciously choose where I place my attention.

A Wonder Bread

Sep3

I’m grateful I got four early cabbages, and learned a lot in the garden, before I took the screen covers off the late cabbages when they got too crowded. Because there’s not much left, and less each day.

And I’m really grateful I had a fun distraction over the weekend, making a seemingly complicated bread that said it was “same day,” but took several steps and lots of rises over about 28 hours. ‘That Sourdough Gal’ offers a one, two, or three day version in several loaf-pan sizes, starting with this Sourdough Wonder Bread Copycat Recipe. Amy’s made it a few times but this was my first effort. On Sunday night I made the stiff sweet starter (right) and let it rise overnight, and well into the morning since it was a cool night. Late Monday morning I made the tangzhong (left), and was delighted it was done in the microwave instead of stovetop. Both of them could have been more their ideal selves than they managed, but I learned.

After the tangzhong cooled, I mixed all the ingredients in the KitchenAid with a dough hook and let it run for about twenty minutes. I plunked the dough into an oiled bowl and let it rise for almost four hours.

It remained too cool inside to rise well so I set it outside, first in the sun but the top got dry even covered, so I flipped the dough over and moved it into shade. It was supposed to increase by about 30%, and this looked about right.

Then I rolled it into a log and let it rise three plus more hours in the pan, until the center was just above the pan edge.

And baked to perfection! After it came out of the pan I brushed the top with melted butter, and by the time it had cooled enough to slice it was midnight. So I put the loaf away and dreamed all night of the tomato sandwich I would have for lunch the next day.

I’ve waited all summer for this moment: a vine ripe tomato from my garden, homemade soft white bread, and just the right amount of mayonnaise. Amy saw this picture and said “I think you might need more mayonnaise.” I told cousin Mel about the sandwich and she said, “Whenever I get mayonnaise I think of you.” She recalled a time when I was horrified that there was no mayonnaise, and she said, “You wailed!” We laughed and laughed. It’s nice to be known.

I was extra grateful to be able to eat this sandwich yesterday for lunch. Not only that the tomatoes survived the grasshopper plague and ripened beautifully, that the bread turned out so well, that there was sufficient mayonnaise, but that I could finally chew again after five days on a liquid diet. The dental crowns that keep on giving! It’s been awful, but with some friendly advice and a recollection, I finally got some relief from the mouth and face paralysis and pain. I drank custard, soup, and smoothies for five days, took Vitamin I morning and evening, and looked up some Feldenkrais sessions for jaw pain. It still feels awkward to close my mouth but the teeth have almost quit hurting, don’t feel loose anymore, and can at last do their job again. On a wonder bread.

Pure and utter perfection: tomato, mayo, salt

Yesterday evening by the pond, I was trying to capture a gorgeous blue dragonfly, which I didn’t quite succeed in, but a sweet mama frog hopped into the picture. And when I looked at the picture, I saw another frog already hiding beyond the lily pads.

This morning, who did I find up in the vegetable garden all the way the other end of the yard? One of my darlings in the wood chips damp from the sprinkler. They are on the move! I wanted to catch it and return it to the pond, but who am I to say? It had come all this way braving untold hazards, I could hardly be the decider and make it start its journey all over again. And then for lunch, I enjoyed another perfect tomato sandwich, with some lightly curried carrot-corn soup. It’s been a peaceful couple of days at Mirador, as the wild world spins around.

A Different Harvest

Aug25
My tragic garlic harvest this year. They seemed to do so well for so long, then at the end they just gave up. You reap what you sow: I wonder if it was because I used bulbs from garlic I grew last year, and they just didn’t have the energy to grow big and strong. Next year, back to Territorial Seeds or a local organic grower. Of course, that’s really this year: the time to plant garlic is next month.

“How many times have you wondered why 44% of the country still supports the president as he directs soldiers to patrol selected cities, orders heavily armed masked men to snatch people off the street, causes prices to rise, gives tax cuts to billionaires, and ends health insurance for millions? That is a complicated question with no short answer, but one of the main reasons is that millions of Americans are hearing lies or don’t know what the president is actually doing … because much of the media has been silenced by or is fearful of Trump.

He knows where his loyal followers get their “news,” and he is making sure those organizations toe the MAGA line.

Trump’s manipulation can be felt from legacy media (see: CBS News and The Washington Post) to local television ownership consolidation to the burgeoning MAGA-mediasphere of podcasts and social media influencers. But it all starts where the press and the president are in each other’s presence on many if not most days.”

Dan Rather, Steady, August 22, 2025

I’ve harvested most of the slicer tomatoes prematurely, because now that the grasshoppers have demolished everything else I didn’t cover, they’re coming for the maters! I put the first haul into a brown paper bag a few days ago and they’re already glowing up with a little warm color.

Our “local” Denver 9 News is on the chopping block. Kyle Clark, the host of the best regional newscast I’ve ever encountered, is making clear to his viewers, objectively, that selling out to Fox isn’t a great idea. Television is inherently dangerous, as Jerry Mander points out in his first book, especially from a political point of view, because“it is the one speaking to the many.” His work was terribly historically informed and prescient, and it’s only gotten more so since this 1991 interview in The Sun Magazine.

“The fantasies of utopian existence promoted by proponents of the technological, industrial mode of life for the last one hundred years are now demonstrably false. That’s not what we got. What we got was alienation, disorientation, destruction of the planet, destruction of natural systems, destruction of diversity, homogenization of cultures and regions, crime, homelessness, disease, environmental breakdown, and tremendous inequality. We have a mess on our hands. This system has not lived up to its advertising; in developing a strategy for telling people what to do next, we first have to make that point. Life really is better when you get off the technological/industrial wheel and conceive of some other way. It makes people happier. It may not make them more money, but getting more money hasn’t worked out. Filling life with commodities doesn’t turn out to be satisfying, and most people know that.”

Jerry Mander, in conversation with Catherine Ingram

One nice harvest surprise was this handful of small russet potatoes, which grew from an organic grocery store potato that sprouted before I could use it. I stuck it in a tub of dirt in the early spring and it grew in the sunroom for a month before it could go outside. Despite predation, against the odds, it came to fruition.

It’s gone from bad to worse and we’ve been prey the whole time, utterly caught in the sticky web of technology and now unable to extricate ourselves. I’m as guilty as anyone, but I’m grateful that mindfulness practice is an antidote that helps me keep some attentional autonomy. As Mander says, television “is most efficient at centralized, top-down usage which imposes imagery and programs people accordingly. The imagery remains in them and then they imitate the imagery. It is a powerful brainwashing and homogenizing machine.”… (and now by extension most of what the internet offers)

Rocky Mountain beeplant is among the most underrated wildflowers, and one of the most spectacular. It’s also a mad bee magnet. I sow the seeds throughout the yarden at the end of summer, and hope for the best. What comes will come.

My voice feels like a cry in the dark. I struggle to nourish hopeful energy because the forecast trajectory is dismal, as laid out in this Bioneers podcast with Thom Hartmann, who “warns of the existential threat of a virulent new oligarchy: the third frontal assault by the ultra-wealthy in American history to use their concentrated economic power to seize maximum political power – and overthrow democracy once and for all.”

Two honeybees of distinctly different colors seem in conflict over a blossom…

Robert Reich names the current president as the culmination of these decades of staggering wealth inequality, explaining that Democrats failed during that time to take actions that could have reined in the power grab. His interpretation adds another nefarious facet to Hartmann’s theory, twisting the script so that the worst of the oligarchs now presents himself as the people’s savior. Reich suggests that it’s not too late, and that if Democrats (and Independents, I might add) would actually unify and undertake specific actions they could regain the reins of the country.

from Robert Reich, Sunday Thought
… but they seem to negotiate an agreement to share the abundant resources, neither taking more than they need and each getting enough.

We reap what we sow. Where we place our attention matters. For forty years Big Money have been sowing seeds that ultimately bloomed into Project 2025 and curried this regime to implement it. While most of the rest of us let our attention wander down the insidiously addictive techno-entertainment wormhole, we failed to notice the rug being slowly pulled out from under our relatively stable democracy. The deceit was intentional and highly effective.

My friend John was a passionate student of history. He knew whereof he spoke when he said, “We lived in the best times” — before the third wave of Oligarchy began to crest. Turns out history is relevant after all. I eschewed its study through all my school years but the more I learn of it now the more this current moment makes sense. When people ask me “How did we get here?” I can now say, “It’s complicated…” instead of throw up my hands in impossible confusion. As my understanding of the history of this country broadens beyond the founding fathers and fourth-grade lessons on Virginia’s conquerors, my despair softens into compassion, and I renew my commitment to mindfulness practice and the skills that continue to strengthen my resilience in this challenging political and social landscape. I’m happy to share.

It’s not all froglets all the time, there are still a few tadpoles left swimming around. But… it’s mostly froglets!

The little froglet in front looks like it’s missing its left eye–and possibly a leg. Amazing how it survives, against the odds, in a supportive, nurturing environment; a community of froglets standing together.
I grabbed the camera to catch these twins knowing I only had a second before they fled. I didn’t notice it was set to manual for moon photography, so the result was a study in whites. I’m grateful for the ready editing technology in the Photos software that enabled me to pull some color and definition out of a careless mistake. I’m grateful for resilience.

Good Neighbors

Aug18
I’m grateful the little bonsai rose is recovering from its grasshopper defoliation.
One day the froglets will grow big enough to eat this grasshopper, but for now there’s a curious equanimity in their encounter. May I bring the same attitude to neighbors who are so different from me.

The froglets are very good neighbors even though their neighborhood is getting crowded. I have to walk ever so carefully, even ten feet from the pond on the flagstone, to be sure I don’t step on one. They’re literally underfoot! They are tiny, and fragile, and not 100% coordinated yet, so their jumps can be feeble and a little wonky; and also, they don’t really understand about giant feet yet, that they need to get out of the way of shadows.

I keep intending to set some coins out around the edge of the pond for scale to show exactly how tiny they are. But for now I’ll just use a cat: the frog above is the same frog as the one below, on the pond edge, just to the left of the furry hip of Topaz.

You can see several stages of metamorphosis in this image, if you look closely at each tadpole and froglet.
(the next morning)

The best cheese sandwich of the weekend was warmed Brie, sliced homegrown cabbage and red onion, mayonnaise, and organic grape jelly on of course homemade sourdough.

It was a lovely weekend, with ample outside time and the barest hint of pre-fall in the air, a slight cessation of the brutal heat and a minute rise in humidity. Wildfires in this part of the state (the nation, the continent) are rapidly getting contained with a little help from the weather and a lot of effort by brave men and women who are good neighbors to all of us. Whether they left homes nearby me to fight these fires or left homes in another state, right now they are my neighbors. The littles and I enjoyed another stunning sunset with our good neighbors to the west, who came to say hello over the fence and lingered for awhile in companionable silence before going home for dinner.

Speaking of neighbors, many people aren’t aware of the shooting at the CDC a week ago last Friday; it wasn’t a mass casualty event so it didn’t generate sensational television coverage. “Only” one person was killed, a police officer. But it was a mass trauma event, for hundreds of CDC staff and their families, and thousands of people who work in public health. Our neighbors. A foremost epidemiologist, Katelynn Jetelina, discussed the attack and its ramifications for public health workers, the regime’s non-response, and how average Americans can demonstrate support for healthcare workers in this essential, and increasingly stressful and traumatizing, field of public service. It’s forty minutes of lucid and moving discussion. Many of my neighbors work in healthcare, a lot of them in our rural hospital system which is on the chopping block with upcoming cuts to Medicaid. Are any of your neighbors healthcare professionals? How can you show them some appreciation?

Speaking of good neighbors, I was grateful this morning to be invited onto a press call about the destruction of the Social Security Administration. My contribution followed former SSA chair Martin O’Malley’s chilling assessment of the regime’s efforts to demolish social security. You can watch the press conference here if you’d like to hear just how badly the regime has already damaged “the only agency in America that runs a 2.6 trillion dollar surplus,” and also hear a couple of regular folks talk about what social security means for them and their neighbors.

Can’t we all be good neighbors to each other? Planet Earth is our only neighborhood, for all of us, human and non-human alike.

This evening, I only counted a dozen tadpoles left in the water. I know there are more I didn’t see, but I saw just as many froglets in one square foot at the edge of the pond. I’m not fond of the algae, but the froglets are, so I’m not about to scoop it out. It’s an essential part of their neighborhood, which is all they have and all they know.

More Froglets!

Aug11

I’m grateful that there were plenty of windows of opportunity to visit the pond over the weekend. A massive wildfire northwest of here about eighty crow miles covers much of the state in smoke depending on which way the wind blows. When it blows from the south these days, we have good air; when it blows from the north, as it’s been doing the past several nights, the air quality shoots up over 110 and many of us have to stay inside. I’m grateful it’s not worse: friends from Chicago to Syracuse have been experiencing the worst air in the world on occasion over the past couple of weeks, due to even more massive wildfires in Canada. So when I get a window of clean air I make the most of it, and visit the pond.

Despite jaw and tooth pain as my mouth settles around new crowns and attendant complications, I’ve “gotta eat sometimes,” as the dentist kindly reminded me. So I’ve enjoyed eating homemade brown sugar-cinnamon poptarts for breakfast the past few days. Amy recommended the recipe and since that was always my favorite flavor poptart growing up I had to try it. Pretty good for a first effort, and not that hard to make. Not perfect, either, so I’ll have to make them again.

After breakfast, or sometimes before, I visit the pond, where fewer and fewer tadpoles swim and more and more froglets crowd the edges. They’re in the rushes, on the lily pads, among the flagstones, under the flagstones, out in the grasses. This evening I took a quick look and had to step very carefully to avoid stepping on some: little froglets everywhere! They’re so tiny they get a little tangled in the grass stems when they startle and try to hop to the pond for safety. Wren could catch and eat them easier than she does the grasshoppers, but she’s been very responsive to my admonishments to leave it.

Above, four froglets cluster at the edge, and a nearly-turned tadpole rests in the warm shallow just above the tiny snail on the brick. In the detail below you can see a fifth froglet’s leg peeking out below the brick, underwater.

At the slow north end, where algae has collected, I couldn’t count the gathered froglets, and kept getting closer, and closer.

I hadn’t thought about what the soles of a froglet’s feet look like and it kind of surprised me to see the little bumps. I think these are the toes beginning to develop, but that’s just an educated guess. After seeing how far they’ve ventured from the pond already and how fragile and vulnerable they are, I may need to use my next window to lay out some branches and build a few rock piles; I certainly won’t be mowing again this year.

After a weekend of adventures and work and smoke and play, Wren and I both rest.

Wonder

Aug8

Little froglets everywhere…

I wonder if this frog has thoughts or feelings about her “mini me” sitting in front of her.

Evolution of a sunset. Last night I caught the sun going down below the clouds and smoke, and wondered whether to wait and see if it got any prettier…

Then when I turned around to walk home, I realized I’d missed the moonrise. Oh well. You can’t have everything. I’m grateful for plenty of wonder every time I turn around.