Amphibian Love

Spring is officially here and I am glad.
Spring welcomes the world with warm temperatures, flowers, green leaves, nice breezes and twitterpated wildlife!
'Twitterpated' is such a cute, gentle word and so appropriate for children to understand when talking about nature, but you and I know
that the word twitterpated is really a substitute word for  'booty call '.
And in the spring that booty call signal goes out to e v e r y - l i v i n g - t h i n g!!!
All day, all night.
Sometimes noisy, occasionally quiet.
But mostly noisy.
Nature doesn't need cell phones for a late night dial up, nature just SCREAMS out what it wants and screams it right next to our front door.
We now have frogs that scream out to each other, all afternoon and all night in their froggy voice saying:
 "HEY!...HEY!!..H E Y!!!.... MAKE AMPHIBIAN LOVE TO ME, ME, ME, ME!!!!
Our family built a small goldfish pond very close to the front door of our home and with each passing spring the frog population has increased in and around it.
This years community of about 16 large resident croakers scream their twitterpated balloon necks out loudest at night.
At least that is how many I could get a visual on last night with a flashlight.
They don't run from us or even care that we are there, in their space, with lights in their eyes, writing blog posts about their lustful habits.
Because they're not shy.
They will not hide their horny selves.
We have to always be careful not to step on them.
It is almost Biblical out there on the patio at night.
But we love them and frogs are in crisis around the world, so we give them our blessing and try to avert our eyes from the frog on frog pileups in and out of the water.
The froggy yelling is actually song like and if you can pretend that you don't really know what they're saying, it is very enjoyable......and LOUD.
So I took some night pics of one of our amorous residents so you can enjoy the spring with me along with a translated caption.


"H E Y ....!"


"HH EE YYY ....!!"


"I WANT TO MAKE....."


".....T A D P O L E S WITH Y O U !!!!!!!!!!"

Now this is just a paraphrase translation because I only watched Dr. Doolittle 18 times.
But I've been practicing and am now pretty fluent in amphibian.


Thanks for being here.

How Many?

The following interaction was overheard yesterday at one of my favorite places to eat, while I waited for a table:

Host: "Yes ma'am, how many in your party?"

Lady: "3 of us and them." She said this as she pointed to more adults and children coming
in the door.

Host: He silently watches the arriving new group, which was a whole passel of people in blurried motion trying to come completely inside, take off their coats and say "Hello" to each other, as the children were all scurrying around the entrance, greeting and touching each other.
He waits a bit, then he tries again.

Host: "OK, yes ma'am, how many in your party?"

Lady: "Well, 3 of us and them." She says it this time while taking her pointy finger and doing air circles around the 2 groups.

Host: "So, how many will that be?"

Lady: "Well....3...of...us.........which...includes...him......(pointing to the boy looking at the jukebox)......a n d....them." She says this while deliberately pausing and speaking slower so that maybe the Host will understand this time, all the while using her ever increasing in size, air circles.

The host walked away with his clipboard and didn't try again.
I wonder if they got any food.


Made me chuckle.
God Bless the restaurant workers.

Thanks for being here.