Day 19: Jungle

A Gray Treefrog has been trilling from our deck for a few days, and he showed himself today long enough for the children and me to get a good look at him.  He's been taking shelter in the folded cover of our barbeque grill that lies in a heap on our deck, holding the rain in numerous little pockets.  The frog was dark gray to match the grill cover.  He let my boy pat his back gently ("It's sticky!"), and stayed long enough afterwards for my girl to inspect him closely (she wasn't ready to touch him yet).  Then he scooted himself backwards into a tiny cave behind him.

Tonight, though, the deck is silent; the calls all issue from the pond near the base of the deck.  Have all the treefrogs made their migration to water by now?  When will we start seeing eggs?  Will our four ducks get to all the eggs before we can fish some out for safekeeping?

9:15pm sit
65 degrees

Humid tonight, and still.  Seven Gray Treefrogs are calling loudly throughout the neighborhood (three in our pond), which, along with the humidity, make it seem like a rainforest tonight.  One or two peepers still singing hopefully to the south, and crickets in the yard to the north.

The night felt full of life, like there was a creature every inch, be it worm, moth, aphid, raccoon, dove, frog.  I felt timid about climbing the tree when I got to its trunk, and stood for a bit, taking in the feel of the darkness and the noise of the frogs.  I had let my hair fall down over my ears and around my neck to keep the mosquitoes off, but felt vulnerable with my ears partially covered, and tucked it back after all.  On reflection now, I wonder if my nervousness about climbing the tree was due to my inability to hear the usual night noises over the noise of the treefrogs.  Heightened alertness from a compromised sense.

Saw a flash of light in a memorial garden in our family's yard, and remembered a family friend who died young last year; Karolina, bright and ballsy and vibrant.  With her inspiration, I climbed up into the dark tree.  The leaves of the little maple that grows amongst the pine trunks have grown so much as to completely obscure my path, and I ascended through the leaves as a plane climbs through clouds, unable to see what was just above me.

Sat on my branch listening to the treefrogs, peepers, crickets, cars.  Realized, in the moist air, what a treasure our home is, our yard.  As much as I yearn to live where I have the privacy from neighbors and greater distance from the road, this land we live on is such an immense blessing to my family.  The dear plum trees we planted a few years ago that carry the stories of my son's and daughter's first tastes of the fruit, of the day almost every male in our family - and a dear friend - came to help us relocate the trees so they would have more room to grow.  The stories of our garden, laid out by my husband and mother-in-law several years back, with so many cherished memories of us and our children, and our little old dog Fritz who used to pick peas with me in the early summer.  So much richness in this land, such a wealth of habitats just on our 3/4 acre plot: the soggy marshy area down low, the "pond" (formed by the crater of an above-ground pool), the pine tree forest, the open yard amidst it all.  We are so blessed.

Sitting in the tree, I felt called to climb down even before I knew my time was up.  I hesitated, wanting very much to fit in to the stillness of the night, of all the other creatures around me.  I didn't want to fill my usual daytime role of HUMAN crunching over the land.  I wanted to fit in to nature.