“Was that a baby frog?” I asked my man as we were having our breakfast on our lanai a couple of days ago.
“It’s too little,” he observed. “And how would it grow into a frog from a tadpole on a screened-in porch?”
Good question I thought as I observed another creature about half-an-inch in size hopping around on the pavers. I got up, opened the screen-door and shooed him out, along with his companion. He didn’t go easily.
Back in my chair, I was finishing off my cereal when I noted more of the frogs.
“What the heck?” I thought. Was this the return of the Biblical plague that occurred when the Jews were being enslaved in Egypt? I was hoping the little guys weren’t predictors of bad days ahead. It is hurricane season, during which anything is possible.
I couldn’t just leave them on the patio, could I? Thirty minutes later, when corralling the diminutive creatures had become an exercise in futility, I left the lanai and closed the sliding door. Maybe they will just go away, I thought.
But, no the next day, there were even more. I managed to direct ten of them out the door onto the grass. The rest remained clinging to the screen.
I texted my neighbor. “Are you having a tiny frog invasion?”
“Let me look. Oh, I see one, there’s two.”
More on the way, I thought.
“Any thoughts on where they might be coming from?”
“No, but I’ll have my husband take care of them.”
I signed off. Take care of them as in kill them? I can’t even bear to squash the tiniest of bugs in my house. Usually, I get a glass and a stiff notecard and carry whatever it is out the front door. Here are these delicate little creatures of nature with pale green bellies and fragile legs that can barely stay upright. I couldn’t possibly let my man do away with them . . . although he did volunteer for the duty.
If only they would go a little more willingly toward the screen door, I might have the energy to save another thirty or forty. But they are obstinate. Really, not very bright when you come down to it. Still, they deserve to have their day in the sun—or whatever their normal lifespan is.
I’m going to do the best I can to save a few more, while hoping that the creatures don’t find their way into my nightly dream adventures as a menacing ten times their normal size.
There is a bright size to this particular plague. At least they aren’t snakes.