MOTHER NATURE

A Young Toad-Frog’s Fancy

/ cigarman501 / 4 Comments

 

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I am happier, and usually saner, with the advent of spring and the end of winter than I am with the death of summer and fall.  Certain birds finding their way to my feeders that weren’t there a few weeks ago, the finches and mourning doves, the return of my Redtail Hawks. They came early this year.  The deer eating my privet, not eating enough privet, certain flowers blooming at certain times and my toad.

I first wrote about “The Toad in the Corner” a year or two ago, a huge American toad that has appeared outside my back door for years.  I found it comforting to see her having backed herself into a shady spot at the corner of my foundation and rock wall during the heat of the day.  Coming out to wreak havoc on the insect population at night, sitting on a flat rock, all fat and sassy.  Unconcerned about my entrance into her realm.

Despite her ambivalence toward me, I worry about her.  The average lifespan for a toad in the wild is about a year.  She’s been extremely lucky for some five seasons now, somehow avoiding Mr. Herbert No-Shoulders, the huge black rat snake that resides in the same area along with Mrs. No-shoulders and her brood…maybe Toady has just gotten too big to eat.  She is uuuuuuuge!

I found her waiting for me early this morning while I waited for my fifteen-year-old puppy dog to find her spot.  Toady was sitting on her flat rock, but she wasn’t alone.  She had a friend, a friend with benefits I might guess.

At first glance, I thought something was wrong.  She looked deformed.  Was it that bad a winter?  I looked closer and saw what I thought was a deformity was a much smaller toad riding high on her back.  I was reminded of a baby riding on one of his parent’s backs.

I don’t think she was his momma…or maybe she was his “Hot Momma.”  I’ve seen her several times during the day and her suiter is still riding on her back.  She walks, he rides.  Mentally I make a note to look up the range of an American toad…as far as a mile from their breeding sites.  Now I’m Googling their breeding habits.

You can tell this quarantine thing is getting to me.  Combined with sciatica, rainy weather and a sick tractor, I’ve got too much time on my hands…and there is laziness too.

Through research, I found out it is not unusual for the female to carry her suitor to her breeding grounds…the breeding pool of water which I assume is the stream below my home.  For some reason, I thought about frog gigolos, “Hey baby, goin’ my way?  How ‘bout a lift.  What’s your sign?  Can I buy you a drink?”  Louis Prima is singing “Just a Gigolo” in my head.  I guess it could be the David Lee Roth version.  I’m thinking of disco, glitter balls and lime-green leisure suits, colorful, long collared “catch me, f@#$ me” shirts and gold bling.

I found out if females are scarce it is not unusual for many waiting males to climb on board creating a “toad ball.”  The orgy scene from Caligula flashed briefly before my eyes…I only read about it…maybe.  I really wanted to laugh but as I read on, I found it is usually fatal for the female.  “I love you to death” takes on a new meaning.

Image result for Toad ball

I obviously need more humor injected into my life and something productive to do.  Something is very wrong contemplating the sex life of toads and frogs or as we say here, toad frogs.  Well, it is spring when a “young man’s fancy turns to love” or a young toad’s fancy is to ride around on a big ole’ momma toad waiting for her to make the trek to her egg-laying site.  I just hope she survives her “La danse de l’amour.”  French is such a sexy language…even when describing toads.

 

Don Miller writes about whatever strikes his fancy.  His author’ page is https://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM?fbclid=IwAR0Tk_BUmCRpeCR63Kr59dyLywOMUia36e7djQlIDqefkK6aKUYyW9svuK4

The featured and last images are from https://www.ephotozine.com/photo/toad–mating–ball–53338916

The first image is of Toady and her suitor.

 

Calliope of Lights

/ cigarman501 / 4 Comments

I awoke from a deep sleep, my bladder bursting, hustling me out of my warm and comfortable bed.  It was three hours ’til dawn but deep down I knew my sleep was over for the night.

I tried to write but my block stopped me cold, a book to read maybe.  Some real writers to motivate me.  The words on James Lee Burke’s pages didn’t seem to catch my interest.  I knew it wasn’t Burke…it was me.

With Dish’s Top 250 how can you find nothing to pique your interest on TV?  It wasn’t Dish…or Netflix and Amazon Prime…it was me…and the infomercials about “CrepErase.”  Anyone remember “Psychic Friends?”

I was up and antsy staring at the darkness from my French doors.  There was still two hours before the break of dawn.  My bride was still asleep, her puppies protecting her, blocking anyone’s path to the bed.  I sure did not want to wake her, stumbling into something in the dark.

I decided to do what I had done during the years I was a contributing member of society…the days before I retired.  When I taught, I ran or walked in the darkness before school, from five until six-thirty every morning.  I don’t run any longer thanks to arthritic knees, but I do walk, and it seemed “there is no time like the present.”

The light from my headlamp reflected back into my eyes as the mist swirled, the road as dead and silent as the inside of a coffin.  I shuttered a bit as goosebumps chased each other over my body.  The mist was closing in on me and quite eerie.  As my pathway rose to the ridge and highway above, the mist seemed to clear allowing me to observe a light show I had somehow forgotten.

Droplets of dew hung from the greenery lining the sides of the road and showed all the colors of the rainbow as I walked past illuminating them.  Each little droplet acted as its own prism.  Tiny stars twinkling red, green, yellow and pale blue.  It was as if Christmas had come early along with a birthday celebration.

An orb spider had strung her web across my path, and it appeared festooned with diamonds.  The large arachnid sat in the middle of her glittering domain, choosing to sit on her tiara rather than wear it.   I ducked to keep from disturbing the web and Miss Spider.

A leopard frog froze in the beam of my light reminding me of a previous predawn walk at the lake at Lookup.  Dozens of frogs lined up on the lake path, facing the lake in hopes breakfast would fly by.  Their yellow-orange eyes glowing in the beam of my spotlight along with their black, green and yellow patterns.

There were other glints of light, some that moved.  I looked closely at a limb and the greenish mote of light reflecting from it…an insect of some type, tiny with pale white legs and a greenish exoskeleton.  I had moved too close to see the twinkle and backed away to make sure it was real and still there.

I reminded myself of a walk on a moonless, predawn hike during my former life.  As the light on my head bounced from side to side, I saw an unfamiliar, heart-shaped flower reflecting in the distance.  Reflecting white in the grass, the “flower” was heart-shaped and looked as if there were two stamens instead of one.  As I moved closer to examine it, the flower moved, and the stamens blazed orange-red back at me.  It was the tiny face of a young possum.  It looked at me with no fear or it was simply blinded by the light.  I briefly worried about its mother until I heard a rustling in the dry leaves beyond the grass.  Mom was still close by, her own eyes blazing in my lamp, and I decided I would make sure I wasn’t close by.

There was a type of harmony to the lights.  So different yet fitting together like a symphony…a symphony of light rather than sound.  Calliope was the Greek muse presiding over poetry and eloquence, known for her harmonious voice.  I am neither poetic nor eloquent and my singing voice is certainly not harmonious.  I hope Calliope doesn’t mind me thinking of her as I think of my own calliope of light.

I will pay for my early morning later in the day, but the price of admission was worth it.  I believe I might do it again tomorrow…I’ll just change my schedule to accommodate more of them.

Don Miller writes on a variety of subjects.  To visit his author’s page, go to https://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM

The image is from http://alistairduncan.co.uk/portfolio/possibility

Spring….

/ cigarman501 / 5 Comments

 

Spring is finally here in the Foothills of the Blue Ridge.  A high of seventy-one today if the weather liars are to be believed…and a high of forty-eight tomorrow.  Thunderstorms with copious lightning and rainfall moved through the area on the last night of winter.  Three to five inches of snow is expected in the mountains above us on the first night of Spring.  Come on Mother Nature…I have a therapist I can suggest who might help you with your dysfunction.

I awoke this morning with a tremendous pressure…on my bladder.  Five a.m. and like every morning I had to go drain the lizard.  I stepped out my back door…I live in the country, if I want to relieve myself out my backdoor it’s okay and I am conserving water.

The light from my hallway displayed scraps of fog, torn and driven by the light morning breeze.  It had been almost tropical the night before, before the storms.  This morning it was just a pea soup fog being rendered by the wind.  The fog was ghostly as it slid by in the reflected light.  The specter didn’t scare me, nor did it scare the big doe staring at me from across the fence.  I must not have been too terrifying either as I hosed the ground between us.

She stood facing me as if thinking, “Son…please cover yourself.”  Slowly I did, and she still didn’t move.  “No, not very impressed, are we?”  She just stood there showing me those beautiful brown eyes and “big ole ears” standing at attention.  She was as beautiful as anything I had seen since first seeing my granddaughter.

I decided to take a step toward her and she held her ground.  She let me move within a yard before her tail stood up and she leaped into the darkness.  A deer’s tail disappearing into the darkness may be one of the most delightful sights I’ve ever seen.  How in the world can you shoot one of these animals for sport?

I walk, daily, for exercise since my knees and feet have worn out.  As soon as it was light enough I went out for my five-mile commune with nature.  There she was again, this time across the road on my walking path.  Again, she stood as if to say, “What took you so long, come on, just follow me.”  I did.  I followed her beautiful tail until it disappeared.

The doe started me thinking about Native American “spirit guides.”  I know I run a chance of being called “Pocahontas” or rather “Walking Bear” by our Name Caller in Chief, but according to family lore, Native Americans blood courses in my veins…no, I haven’t had a DNA test, but Pocahontas may be a distant relative.  My thoughts caused me to wonder.  If I rate a “spirit guide,” I think I want it to be that doe.  Somehow, we seemed to connect.  We’ll see if she returns and if she does, where she might lead me.

Happy Spring Days and Nights.

Image from https://tsfphotoscartoons.com/2016/06/07/woods-in-the-fog/

Please stop by and visit Don Miller’s writer’s page at https://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM  or his Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/cigarman501/

LISTENING TO THE DARK

/ cigarman501 / 2 Comments

As I left my front gate there is just a hint of pink in the east spawning a prediction that the sun will once again make an appearance. It is still quite dark as I begin my walk. My five miler will be made mostly in the dark. I am attempting to avoid the late July heat which will eventually nudge ninety-five degrees even here in the eastern foothills of the Blue Ridge. I wish I could avoid the humidity which is still quite high at 5:15 this morning. Too soon the humidity will envelope me like a heavy and wet wool blanket. Later I will have to cut grass and will resemble someone who has walked his pet seahorse when my chore is completed.

I think of the old sailor’s proverb, “Red sky in morning, sailors take warning.” There is just a hint of pink on the horizon and despite the humidity, not enough moisture has collected to form even a thunderhead and we are dry to the point of suffering. I don’t believe “pink” is the new “red.”

Twenty-five minutes later I am “glistening” with perspiration at Lake Lookup. It is still dark but I decide to walk the narrow woodland path circling the lake. For unknown reasons, I find myself compelled to silence my music and just listen…to the darkness. At first all I can hear is the normal and incessant roar which has disturbed my hearing since my early adult years. The buzzing is a product of working in a cotton mill during my youth, sans ear protection, and from standing too close to speakers at “hole-in-the wall” juke joints.

As my miner’s lamp cuts through the darkness several bats take advantage of the insects attracted to the cone of light, causing me to duck despite the knowledge the furry flyers have great sonars. There is a haunting “WHO…WHO…WHO” calling out to me from the distant hill crest and the rustle of what I hope are small animals scurrying away through the leaves.

I am surprised at how quiet it is. Not at all like last night with the cicadas “screeching” into the night. I am alone with only the sounds of my footfalls to break the silence…and the bull frogs. Not the deep bass “ribbits” I would have expected, these are more tenor in pitch and produced a sound more like “gah-lup, gah-lup, gah-lup.” The frogs are lined up on the narrow, root strewn lake path facing toward the lake, hoping their breakfast hops or flies by. Instead it is only me and they don’t even move. Frozen by the beam of my light, they glisten green, yellow and black, their little eyes reflecting my light back at me. As I walk on, carp begin to roll close to the lake bank, their splashes causing the only ripples on the still, black surface of the lake…until I scare a beaver swimming in the lake’s small inlet. His tail slap reverberates like a gunshot and evokes the “flight” reflex from me.

It is lighter now but gray is still the dominant color. The gurgling of a small waterfall temporarily drowns out the darkness until I can hear the calls of “early” birds “looking for the worm to catch.” The world is waking up. It is comforting to know the earth is still spinning, continuing it’s trip around the sun. It is a welcomed calm “listening to the dark,” before I face the day.

More nonfiction by Don Miller is available at http://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM