We've had lots of animals on Locust Hill over the years, both wild and domestic. I just counted up the dogs - nine! I've been thinking about Hidie, the mutt who looked like Benji, the TV canine. Hank didn't like her much and referred to her as a flea-bitten yellow cur. Hidie got her name because Rasta, our American Water Spaniel, bit her the minute she arrived, so she hid under a peony bush and we couldn't find her until nightfall. The one command she obeyed was "Under" which made her scurry under anything available to get out of sight.
Hidie used to play a game with our frogs. She'd stalk the pond edges until she could catch a frog, take it up onto the lawn and watch it hop back to the water. Before it reached the safety of the pond, she'd catch it again and repeat the game until, like some mechanical toy that eventually winds down, the frog would succumb and no longer hop. I didn't like watching this game, but when I walked around the pond this June and counted the frogs sitting on the edge or leaping into the water as I passed, I wished Hidie were still with us.
Fifty-six frogs! Bullfrogs, leopard frogs, green frogs. The tiny ones sometimes didn't even bother to jump to safety. They stayed frozen in place on the bank, hoping they were invisible. Some of the bigger frogs, brown as tobacco juice, leapt in such a panic they managed to behave like skipping stones, getting a dozen feet or more across the water before disappearing into its depths. Others slipped into the water as cleanly as arrows, making hardly a ripple.
Along with the frogs there was a multitude of tadpoles, some no bigger than minnows, others already sprouting little legs. Each panicked pack of pollywogs dashed to the security of deep water as I passed, reminding me the start of the Boston Marathon.
The grandfather frogs are already so big and fat that when I looked out the window at dawn yesterday I thought I had ducks swimming around in the pond. I'm not sure how to tell the sex of a frog. Maybe there were grandmothers as well as grandfathers? In any case, morning seems to be the time when they like to fight, or possibly, since I know nothing about their sex life, make love. I do know that I am constantly finding jellied frog eggs jiggling on the pond's edges.
My photo today is what inspired this column. As I floated around the pond in my inner tube one hot day last week (yes, we swim in our pond, despite the frog population), I saw these croakers all sitting under a flagstone. No wonder their garumphing love songs late at night are loud enough to wake me up! I got my camera and was thrilled to see that they were all still there when I floated back out to take their picture.
I don't know if I can fill the rest of this column with interesting information about frogs, but I'm going to try, just so I can use the picture.
Each frog species has a different croak. The green frog, his ballooning throat resembling an egg yoke, sounds something like the plinking of a banjo when he sings. The leopard frog, just as spotted as his namesake,. has a harsh ker-r-r-ock when he sings. And the bullfrog has that marvelous jug-a-rum. When they all tune up in the evening you'd think we'd invited a poorly directed glee club to perform. Only the males sing and their songs are strickly for mating purposes , with the exception of the bullfrog, who apparently enjoys singing just for the fun of it.
Frogs have plenty of enemies besides playful dogs like Hidie - birds, snakes, raccoons - to name a few. I often catch a glimpse of the great blue heron who comes by for breakfast, deftly spearing a frog or two before our dogs chase him away. Fortunately we don't have any snakes or raccoons. I'd rather have fifty-six frogs on Locust Hill than either of these frog eaters.
Last fall our grandson Eli and his buddy Teddy caught two of the biggest frogs and took them to the Colebrook Frog Competition. One frog won the prize as the biggest, the other the prize as the fastest. They ran relay races? Fortunately our frogs seem to be totally healthy, none of them appear to be deformed, a problem being reported in many areas of the state. There are just a little too many of them.
Last summer we probably had fifty-six frogs, sixty-six? I didn't count them, but there were obviously dozens and dozens, so one night when our friend Angie was here, she spent half an hour catching them by tying a piece of red flannel on a fish hook. Hank did the messy part, then cooked the legs on the grill. They were delicious. That's about the only useful thing I can think of about having a pond full of frogs. Unlike their cousins, the toads, who eat bad bugs in the garden, frogs only eat mosquitoes and provide entertainment.
Sorry, you didn't learn much useful information today, but I had a lot of fun writing this column.
