Lidocaine for the soul

The mother frog,
or yellows

The past couple of days, I have gotten up early so as to be able to be extra unproductive. This morning, I gave up. Too bad. It was a nice morning, and the afternoon is not so nice. In fact, I think it will rain again.

This must be another phase of mourning. It's unpleasant. You don't even have the benefit of the exquisiteness of pain and tears, just nothing. It's like eating the hollow fine dark chocolate Easter bunny and getting to the middle part. Your heart hurts, but as diffusely as your most acute thought, which never gets beyond something you can't quite identify tapping on your consciousness in gloved hands. Your brain seems to be wearing gloves, too, or just all the gauze you looked for when you burned your stomach ironing the skirt you were wearing.

The steam might burn you.

"Yeah. I know."

And you don't care? That was myself speaking. You probably recognize the voice by now.

"Well, of course." My thought trailed off to follow every other one I had attempted in the last three weeks.

You lift the hem of your skirt, just to get that area at the zipper that is all puckered, the one you didn't do, taking some care to step back as far from the ironing board as possible. You press the steam button and feel the pain.

So, you cared, you say?

You lift your skirt to look at the white skin of your abdomen and see the spot turning pink.

"Shit." Myself wandered off to more promising things.

By evening, you can tell your husband when he comes home what you did.

"On entend ça des femmes enceintes --" He was chuckling. He is, if you recall, an Ob/Gyn. I didn't even have that excuse.

"Oui. Le ventre. J'imagine." I hoped for him not to press quite how I accomplished this. He was content enough to continue to be amused, thinking of all those women whose bellies surprised them. Later, getting ready for bed, I showed him.

"Mais, c'est mauvais," he said, surprised. He has admired my courage since Baccarat was hospitalized and died. I can feel my value rising.

"Oui, je sais." The skin was coming up over an angry red spot now where the elastic of my panties had rubbed it. I had chosen to ignore it rather than bandage it from the first. No wonder, I thought, it hurt.

Finding no tape for the gauze, I got out my precious Neosporin with lidocaine, squirted some liberally on the wound and applied a sports Band-Aid for the knee. I wouldn't have to tell anyone of the misuse of the Band-Aid, but I might look even worse in a bikini once we left for vacation.

Maybe I'll just stay home.

Today, I saw a tadpole. We wondered why we hadn't seen any, since we had observed the behavior characteristic of their arrival. I thought I saw one the other day. They don't move through water in quite the same way as fish, but please don't ask me to describe the difference to you. It's something you sense more than analyze. It is already quite large and probably about to develop rear legs, so it has been around for some weeks, which makes sense, given what we observed, my husband actually calling me over to see. As though with the time I spend at the bassin I had never had this opportunity for observation or frog reproductive behavior.

Meanwhile, I pray I get back to normal (better than normal, actually) soon. I don't think the house and garden can take much more of my mental absence.

And, I forgot to turn off the hose and I burned the plums the neighbor left yesterday that I was simmering into a compote.
....

Hello Frog!

The first frog

They're baaaack!

I knew if I were quiet enough today that I would see one. I was certain I had heard the characteristic "splosh, splosh" of two diving back into the water to escape being seen by me yesterday, and, sure enough, looking in exactly the place where I am most likely to catch one thinking he (or she) is outsmarting me, I saw through the algae a rear foot push off to get away, and then its head!

I know. I am using exclamation points to talk about frog sitings in my basin, but this is what I live for. This is why I live here. To squat by the side of the basin and watch for the frogs, take pictures of the frogs who have chosen to make this old fountain, turned into a fish and wildlife sanctuary quite accidentally by my husband years ago, when he first lived here, their home.

And this after we had to empty it, catching the poor frogs with a children's fish net I bought in the Finisterre for the purpose, and placing them into a makeshift home, while we located the leak that had killed so many of the fish in the terrible freeze of January 2009, and repaired the basin. Most of them jumped from the plastic tub I had also bought in an agricultural supply store in the Finisterre, also just for the purpose, but they returned, once the basin was restocked with its stones, plants, new fish from the local garden centers (our defunct Florosny and Truffaut), who made a new generation of fish, native to the basin, and the mud from the bottom that I had saved in pails, just for the frogs. At least those who would.

They also made lots of tadpoles we had the great pleasure of watching turn into baby frogs, who would go hibernate somewhere in the garden or beyond this first winter of their lives. Some will return to live in the basin, some will find elsewhere to live, many others will have perished in their travel to find a suitable place to winter.

That is nature.

This year, a new cycle begins, and I am right here to follow the progress with about the greatest joy, enthusiasm and sense of rightness in the little world around me that I can imagine. It isn't easy to describe this to people who haven't lived it, or who are used to finding pleasure in so much more, and I tend to protect it, not sure I can stand the looks of confusion or incomprehension I might see.

Anyone who wants to come squat by me, very quietly, and watch the frogs is welcome. Just please close your eyes if you should come into the house.
....

The food chain

No drowned slug goes wasted

This is how frogs' legs get fat for eatin'.

No, we do not eat our frogs here. We take pictures of them. OK, I take pictures of them and worry over them lest they should leave the fish-pond-in-a-fountain and fall pray to one of our cats, which has happened. Sadly. They don't even eat them. They don't even kill them all the way. They just open their guts and leave them helpless to die in the heat.

Bad cats.

And then there was the dog (Baccarat, but I'm not mentioning any names) who bit the lily flower off its stem.

Bad dog.
....

What are the odds?

Pelophylax kl. esculentus and I observe one another

from a short distance

I counted 60 in fewer seconds this morning. They were all gathered together in 3 or 4 groups, making it easy to count them. I read that typically 5 tadpoles will develop for 2,000 eggs laid and fertilized.

60 divided by 5 equals 12. 12 times 2,000 equals 24,000 eggs. A female will lay from 3,000 to 10,000 eggs at a time. So, we are looking at anywhere from 2 to 8 couplings in the basin.

Also possible is that the relatively low numbers of natural predators in a fish-pond-in-a-fountain right outside our front door equals a greater survival rate for the eggs to hatch.

Understand also that I only bothered to count 3 or 4 groups in the basin this morning. That doesn't count everyone else in the other 3/4 to 4/5 of the area.

They are also definitely newly hatched since they measure no more than 6 to 8 mm from snout to the tip of the tail, and they have no rear appendages apparent yet. Those come along before the front legs.

These frogs are going to have to find themselves homes.

And, ah, oui, they are the edible sort.
....