Dangerous habitat

The other day a friend who was having dinner with us started making jokes about "jurasic frog." I thought he was just goofing around until someone finally pointed to the back of our kitchen door. There it was: a petrified frog. A squashed petrified frog. It had jumped up there when nobody was looking, and then someone closed the door. At least it was probably a very quick death.

If you click the photo for a close-up, you can actually see its little spine and ribs and everything. Sigh.

We're getting a lot of frogs in the house lately – there's a little torn place at the edge of the dog door just big enough for them to slip through. They're tiny little frogs, less than an inch long with their legs all folded up, and they come in when the lights are on in the house at night. We get them on the living room window, too – they jump up there to catch insects that are also attracted to the light.

It's not all frogs, either. The other morning I had left the door open while I was outside taking a bath, and when I came back in there was an enormous brown toad standing in the doorway. I suppose I should be glad it wasn't a toad that was sitting in the hinge of the door when someone slammed it shut ... that would've been messy. In fact, come to think of it, I almost ran over one on my bike the other night. In the dim light of dusk I thought it was a piece of bark and was going to see if I could aim my tire right for it and make kind of a jump out of it (I'm easily entertained), but at the last moment I saw it move and realized it was a toad. These ones are big – between three and four inches. Much longer if their legs are all stretched out.

Anyway. I feel sad that that little frog got smashed. I'm trying to take it as a sign of greater things, though. Mr. A said when his uncle lived here he used to spray for ants once a month, and there were no amphibians around at all. If there are enough frogs around to get stuck in the door, then our efforts to green up the place must be working. Our apples may have spots, but at least they're organic.