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Gardening with Frogs (part 1)

  • You know how it is? Suddenly a favorite frog that you have seen develop from spawn and avoided stepping on for months (if not years) suddenly, from nowhere, hops out in front of you. I'm certain it has happened to you all at some time in your life. Picture the scene, it looks up accusingly as your foot clumsily attempts to rectify its predestined trajectory, then for a brief nanosecond your minds meld together and it can see through your eyes, and you through its... Until its 'mither', who you had forgotten about over the summer, slithers out from the swamp and four square behind her hapless offspring before swiping the seemingly doomed critter from under your descending size 11, simultaneously stretching to her full height & slapping you hard on the face, and hopping back into the pond. Consequently I have some serious frog centered diplomacy to do next weekend when my pre-winter garden tidy continues apace, and (I suspect) unless I provide a selection of pre-approved winter resting habitats I know my dreams will be disturbed nightly. I neglected to say, I have already found one dead frog this year, a big 'un as well. Dunno what happened to it, and its corpse was dragged off the next day as well while I was considering whether a burial was appropriate. Perhaps the local fox got in, or the next door neighbor's 6 month old baby, difficult to tell. I remember hearing curious snuffling sounds in the wee hours the other night, but I can't prove anything, not in a tangible sense so as I can go up to Mrs Hacksaw (or her chewed up live in boyfriend) and confront them (and their hideous milk-scented sprog) with the evidence. I'll need to fit a movement detector and a few halogen lights, but I can already see problems ahead with that strategy as I turned my left arm blue last time I attempted to wire a Xmas tree. It (my arm, not the tree) still has convulsive spasms from time to time, generally while I am eating, which can be embarrassing in company (although the dog never complains when the scraps shower down). Not much more gardening this year, but just enough to keep me occupied between tedious temporary jobs while setting up a project that has now been three decades in the planning stages. Once I know you folks better I'd like to get your honest (OK, not too honest) opinion on it. Nearly 11pm, I need to sleep now, remember this is West Coast Brittania, as I have a rather ugly job to do tomorrow as a consequence of someone else's bad planning and a poorly sealed tube of superglue. For some reason I can't get an old singalong ballad out of my head today, and come to think of it I really wish I had double glazing. Still, at least I have a repaired roof this year. Till anon, DdD