Summer of Two Frogs

If you’ve followed me any time at all, you know I love my garden. The last two years have been especially challenging: I was in SC half the time and couldn’t tend. Had no soil to tend there. My soul ached for the earth.

This year has been a really good year in spite of the fact that until mid-June I was in Newberry half the time. My onions aren’t as big, and they’re drying and braided. I planted a lot fewer beans, and one was a Swedish Brown Bean my stepfather, dead now for nearly a quarter of a century, grew in his life with my mother. Who knows how long he’d had those seeds, marked “good eatin” on the side of the lid and 'Swedish browns” on the other.

If that’s not miracle enough for you, consider my 110-gallon cattle tank. The honeybees, after abandoning it last year as a source of water, came back. I can sit and watch them literally land, drink, and make a beeline for their hive. And for the first time ever, I had two batches of tadpoles, early and late--and somehow, the water didn’t get so hot as to kill them all.

Now, two frogs hang out there. It’s the first time ever I’ve heard two--and the fact that there are tadpoles means of course there’s a he and a she and they’ve been he-in' and she-in'. There may be more. I only hear these two, who sing and converse late at night, voices cracking as they mature and settling into their unique croaks as they age. I can sit outside for hours and listen to them.

Two frogs. I am content with my nights.