Frog Song

The garden is (mostly) planted.  Carol has been digging out weeds and digging in strawberry plants, popping in peas, onions, beans, beets, carrots. And flowers.

Brian stepped in the corn, using a marvellous ancient planter that still works perfectly for the job.  He and David spaded their way down the rows dropping in potatoes.

I got the pastures cleaned, fertilized, re-seeded to help green them up for the horses' hungry mouths.

It was hot. Scorchingly hot.

Then, just like that, thunderstorms roiled in. Big storms. Not big like they see in the American mid-west, praise be, and blessings on those people dealing with the massive and destructive weather systems that we are told are now part of the new normal.  But big enough. Crash. Bang. Boom. Lightning strobing up the night.  The up-side was that the hydro (speaking of the new normal) went out.  Without a computer or a television, it was a great excuse to snuggle in for an early night, reading by flashlight, listening to the storm, drifting off to sleep.

Yesterday the rains came sweeping back in early in the afternoon. Without pyrotechnic displays this time, the water just fell all by itself, in sheets of water.  You can almost hear the garden sprouting.  We cannot keep ahead of the asparagus, which grows almost eight inches every day.

When I ventured up to tuck the horses in for their late night check, the rain had given way to thick mist. You could taste the water in the air. Puddles had sprung up even faster than the asparagus.

And the chorus!!!!  The whole place had erupted into spring peepers and tree frogs. Invisible in the dark, they were most certainly not inaudible! What an unbelievable ruckus they were creating.  Up on the hill an owl added the occasional querying "who?" but the night belonged to the frogs. 

Give a little listen.