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October 15, 2013

I'm not sure what I expected yesterday morning on my first dog walk of the day.  I had pulled on my Red Ball rubber boots.

No snow, of course, but after 4+ inches of rain the day before I figured that I might have to slosh through some puddles even if the thirsty, drought-wracked lake bed had sucked down its fill of the rain and run off.

I leashed up the pups and headed out way before sunrise and was surprised by a growing noise that I didn't recognize.  At first I thought someone had opened an all-night machine shop at the end of the road, with ancient belt-driven lathes and drill presses squealing and shuddering.  I struggled to make sense of that (without the benefit of the first mug of coffee for the day, I might add) and decided that the noise was much more like the soundtrack in the bar at the Rainforest Cafe.  But again, the coffee deprived brain pushed back on that notion with the thought that even a blessed four inches of rain wouldn't grow a forest complete with cacophonous birds over night.

I made the corner and the sounds crescendoed, and I had my epiphany:  frog riot.

The Buengers and the parched Leisure Lake were not the only celebrants of Sunday's rains.  I don't know where they had been hiding or whether they had hitchhiked in for the occasion, but they were some happy frogs.  I would say riotously happy.