frog on ice: he’s had it, so have i

I found this little guy while walking through the woods, scoping out turkey hunting spots. This species spends most of the year high in the trees, so finding it down low is likely a sign that breeding season has begun.

YOU’D THINK HE WOULD HAVE NOTICED when he lumbered up and out of the little garden pond to his favorite perch, that he had an oak leaf stuck to his back, but no. This bullfrog spent the entire day Friday in undercover guise–as if his dull winter skin color wasn’t camouflage enough.

THEY HAVE THEIR OWN BLOG NOW, but meantime they’re still under contract here at A Way to Garden, the site that made them famous.

THE FROGBOYS AND I wish you peace in the pond, baby, in 2009.Categoriesfrogboys woo woo

IN A RAINSTORM HE DEPARTED, AND IN A RAINSTORM HE RETURNED. One of my five beloved big bullfrogs (above) hopped back in the other wet night after a four and one-half month absence, with not so much as a single word of explanation, and just that same stupid smile on his face.

THE FROGBOYS CAN’T BELIEVE IT, EITHER: Another warm-weather season is drawing to a close, and with it the “everybody into the pool” mindset that pretty much sums it up around here will be traded for something involving snowsuits, not swimsuits. Everywhere I look this week, there’s a frogboy on the edge of the colder reality ahead.

I was trying to repair a failed de-icer in the pool. All that’s missing from his latest doodle: the flashlight I had in one hand, and the hammer (to crack the ice and save the frogs from suffocating) in the other. (Not the same tools I’d used earlier that day to dislodge ice dams from the roof.) I repeated the hammering periodically throughout the night to protect my beloved amphibians; who needs beauty sleep, when potential princes are at risk? A girl must be versatile, well-equipped, and ever-ready.When does spring begin?Tagsandre jordan

Now before you go thinking dirty thoughts about my wood frog friends up in the top photo, who by the way quack like ducks to my ear, know this:They are simply engaged in amplexus (doesn’t that sound tame and scientific?), in which the male (in this species the smaller frog) clasps the larger female around the back. This goes on for some time, and they don’t seem to be one bit shy. The embrace began right out at poolside, where 15 other frogs were sunning themselves, including the few in the background of the photo below. Eventually the

IT’S A CERTAIN SIGN OF SUMMER, AND IT ISN’T PRETTY. The various male green frogs (Rana clamitans) out back are engaged in hand-to-hand (webbed-foot-to-webbed-foot?) combat, trying to prove who’s top frog.

MY, MY, HOW TIMES HAVE CHANGED. Four months ago I was wearing Max Mara and living in fluorescent light most of the day.

AGIANT FLOCK OF REDPOLLS–BIRDS I NEVER SEE HERE–landed on the newly revealed patio outside my window, looking for nibbles in the cracks and crevices just hours after a little snow finally melted. Only hours after the white stuff gave way on the stones by the frogpond, out climbed three friends, looking no worse for the winter wear.

The less scientific part first: When I picked up my mail Friday, there was a box from Shandell’s, a store not far from me whose owner, Susan Schneider, makes astonishing lampshades out of vintage wallpaper and handmade papers and fabrics…or at least that’s her primary business. I was expecting a lampshade I’d ordered not long ago, but unless she’d dehydrated it, no way my big shade was in that little Priority Mail box.Susan’s business motto is: “Things that make you smile,” and she could not be more correct.  Imagine how big my smile was when out of the mystery box came her surprise, no-special-occasion gift: my own custom tissue-box cover, made from decoupaged, downloaded images of my dollface frogboys from A Way to Garden, where Susan is a regular visitor. You can have a memo