The Frogs of Summer

Summer is here. I walked around the property early this morning to throw fertilizer on my favorite plants (I'm not on speaking terms with some of them), and I was soon covered in sweat. Then in the side yard, as I was clearing out some weeds, I noticed that the Bombax tree has recovered from the winter freeze, growing out and up from the dead brown stock just above the ground--I'd given up all hope on him. In this picture the new green stock is barely visible to the left of the brown one.

Life is resilient, and I would be more encouraged about things if not for all these videos on TV of birds covered in oil, many of them were dead or will soon be. It is a real crime and sad beyond words.

And the oil is heading our way...

The frogs are back in our fish ponds. They come and go with some invisible purpose, some schedule that makes no sense to me, sometimes with the rain and sometimes during a dry spell. Lately Bingo, our bionic CIA dog, is content to rest quietly on the back porch with us and listen.



It's no secret that Bingo is preparing for a top-secret mission (infiltrating the oil cartel), and there's a good chance that he will be away for quite a while. We'll miss him, but maybe at least he'll get transferred to a cold climate. He's definitely not fond of the hot weather.