Nature's Place

  Not this one.

It’s the time of the young frogs. Four arrived last night, that I know of. All small green tree frogs. One as small as 2 ½ cm long. And they can jump. Leaps and bounds is the phrase that springs to mind. I’m sure it origionated with the frog. When one of them determined to move it was gone so fast I was left standing, amazed at this gravity defying feat.

Frogs are not the only creature in ascendance. Everywhere I walk where the grass is long or the bush is thick a cloud of moths rise and scatter out of the way, coming to rest again within footfall. So they rise and fall again, that’s the way of things.

The spider is plentiful too. It’s all a matter of balance.

There can’t be a lot of one thing without enough of another to feed it, or feed off it. It works both ways. Only man has no predator, except himself. Man is probably the only creature that preys on his own kind as a matter of course. Strange that!

Sitting at the computer last night I noticed a small frog climb onto the window from the sill. It climbed a few inches and stopped. Then it climbed some more and stopped. And again, until it was two feet up the window. Then it fell all the way down.

It did that three or four times before it gave up and went away. I wonder what they see in the window. Is it me?

This morning when I looked out through the dirt on the front glass door I saw the prints of a frog that made it nearly to the top, six feet off the ground, then moving sideways. Then the prints slipped, he fell too.

This afternoon I was sitting in my recliner, relaxing. Eye’s closed, focusing on the simple sensation. I felt something hit my hand. I had to look because you never know what it is around here. I looked and saw a small brown spider. It had fallen from the centre beam in the ceiling, about six feet above me. It shook its head and I’m sure I heard it say ‘God, must be gettin old!’

All copyright reserved / Mark Berkery