Update on the Love Life of Our Pond Frogs.

Well, the deed has been done. Or should I say: deeds. For our 54 (!!!) brown pond frogs have produced masses and masses of spawn.

Okay, I admit it is a bit of a puzzle, or 'find the froggie', due to the fact I have used a mobile and not a camera.  But if you look closely, you can spot the white throats of a number of frogs, floating on top of the masses of frogspawn. 

They are so busy-busy with producing more spawn and defending it, that they have lost all shyness. My daughter stuck her hand in amongst them yesterday and they simply croaked on and didn't take a blind bit of notice.

And look at my goldfish...oooooooh....Jaws has nothing on them. They are hanging around, waiting their chance.

Still. They've left plenty of spawn uneaten last year.

It bugged me that I didn't know if both females and males sing, so I did some research. I learned that we have 11 different kinds of frog in the Netherlands, of which the common brown ones are our pond guests. And although the females are larger than the males, it is the males who produce that lovely sexy croak.

I also learned that the difference made between frogs and toads (whom we have in the pond as well) is void these days. Toads are simply a kind of frog.

I can watch them for hours! This morning, before leaving for work, I sang a quick duet with them, and this inspired me to write a Haiku:

Frogs defending spawn

in great gleaming brown wet balls

of irrational lust

Croak!

Update 12th April: All the brown frogs have left to go walk-about!

Froggie's In Love! Pondlife.

Ever since we dug a pond in the side garden, we have had frogs sharing their lives with us. Now, you may think: so what? But let me tell you, frogs (and toads) are fun!

I sometimes wake up in the night, and I hear their sing-a-longs through my open window, and can't help but giggle.

When I was young and growing up in the country, there were no frogs. The farmers around us, and we ourselves, emptied our toilets and washing machines straight into the waterways, which were practically dead. 
Thankfully things changed, helped by laws, and slowly but surely the waterway wildlife improved from the 1980s onwards.

We knew there were frogs in the waterways of the municipal forest at the back of our house. But would they come to visit our pond?
Well today, four years after my husband dug it, we have counted 24 frogs having a wild party amongst our pond forget-me-nots. 
Our cat Viggo sits watching them with fascination for hours. He takes the occasional swipe at the nearest one, and all frogs dive for cover underneath the water plants. But it won't take them long to resurface again, and their concert starts anew.

There is one emerald green frog in the pond, and this one I haven't spotted yet. He is different from the other brownish-greenish ones. His head and body are longer and thinner, and his eyes are more yellow, and he is almost iridescently green. He has the habit of sunning himself on a waterlily leaf, almost as if he invites me to admire his beauty. He doesn't socialize with the other frogs.

One of the common frogs.

Have a good look. What is that green thing on the stone over there? Yes, it's our 
emerald beauty. 
He (or she, but I've got a feeling he's a he) is trying to get the Japanese stone frog 
interested in his song.

A Weighty Decision - According to Viggo.

Hi there, fans, Viggo speaking.
Being overweight is not cool. So I have put my woman on a diet.

We had words on the subject. She said that I am chubby myself, so who am I to tell her to shed some pounds? I retorted that I am a macho defender of home and garden, so I need the extra weight to keep that Maine Coon from six houses down off my back.

Judge for yourself; am I chubby? All I can see is muscle.

Efficient as I am, I have made a list of things my woman is allowed to eat from now on.

Obviously I have taken into account that she is human and needs roughage, so there are plenty of veggies on that list (aaaargh, the idea! I can stomach the occasional garden pea, but that's about it).

Things she can eat:

vegetables (any vegetables, except potatoes)

all kinds of lettuce

all kinds of fruit

yoghurt

muesli

oats (silly woman, as if she is a horse, anyway... where was I?)

crackers

eggs

fatty fish

lean meat

cheese (not in great amounts, mind)

Things she cannot eat:

everything else.

Simple, eh?

Now, I have made an allowance for alcohol, as I know that she will go barmy when I forbid this stuff. We have had a long discussion about this, and she has been able to convince me that my life wouldn't be pretty when I take a stand about it. "Will not be worth living", were her exact words. But: we compromised. I said none whatsoever, she said two glasses a day (keeps the loony bin away) and we agreed on one glass a day (keeps the doctors at bay).

We all know that Easter Weekend is coming up, and it will be interesting (to put it mildly) to see how she will cope with family members stuffing themselves with chocolate eggs and  carrot cake and sloshing away the wine, sherry and beer as if tomorrow never comes.

Still. It is all for her own good. 57 Is the new 47, they say, but not when she looks like a sack of beets.

Right. Signing off now. Have a great Easter!

My Very Own Blossom Festival.

Now will you just look at this!

Isn't it wonderful?

I can totally relate to the Japanese blossom festival, where people go out into the parks and have picknicks under the cherry blossom trees.

This, by the way, isn't a cherry, it is a wild apple tree, and one of the earliest flowering trees in our municipal forest every year.

Gina and me didn't have a picknick though, as it was raining quite heavily when I took it early this morning.

I took another one as well, of the white currant.

The blossoms were too high up for me to reach properly, but it's the thought that counts, eh?

The weather app I use predicts rain for the next 7 days, so I will have to postpone the picknick. Still, the blossoms will cheer up my daily walks tremendously.

Have a blossoming Sunday, where ever you are.

PS. Seconds before publishing this post, I noticed I had typed  'Bossom Festival'. LOL!!! Imagine the comments it would have generated.

The Wetlands Are Mighty Mighty Wet...

Sitting on my sofa with on the one side a view of my dripping garden and on the other side the lilies I bought today, I can't help thinking once more that I was born in the wrong climate...

Although my temperament is decidedly Northern European (thoughtful, phlegmatic, slow to anger, prone to melancholia, capable of sudden bursts of wild exhilaration and a constant need for music) my actual physical body craves warmth and sunshine. And I have this Italian-Mama thing: nothing better than eating in the garden in the company of my loved ones.

So, it shall not surprise you that the prospect of another week of rain-every-day does nothing for my present mood.

As usual, I turn to music for help. And listening back to my dilettante efforts at creating my own music through GarageBand has inspired me to write a Wetlands Haiku:

beefy slinky strings

creating melancholy sounds

wetlands delta blues

Oh Frith, oh my, oh woe is me, oh where is that sun I need so desperately?

So far I haven't got down to the lyrics, but I bet you they will be something like the line above...

Anyone of you out there using GarageBand to make music? I call it 'composing for dummies'. But I love it.

Once, some 40-odd years ago, my Mum suggested I apply for music college (Conservatorium in Dutch). I was playing the guitar and making my own songs even then, but was such an introspective, shy, unconfident thing that the thought alone made me certain that they would never ever accept me.

Silly me!

I should have taken the plunge. Eyes closed, fingers crossed and try out.

But I did not. I went to work at an advertising agency instead, 16 years old, fresh out of school. As I said: silly me.

My son-in-law said to me the other day that 57 was not too old to become a rock star, bless his sweet heart.

Oh well. I feel another line coming on...

Moorcocks screaming pain into the night

or is it love? oh, what's the difference

high winds moaning wet, wet, wetlands blues.

I wish you all a lovely, warm, sunny weekend!

Bring It On! Can't wait for better temperatures.

Spring has definitely arrived in the Wetlands. 
The birds are flocking and dragging bits of twig and tufts of dogs hair around, the fish in my pond have woken up, and the flowers in my garden and in the municipal forest behind our house are lifting their heads above ground.

 Aren't they gorgeous? I adore those March violets.
When my kids were small the patch of them at the entrance of the forest was small also, the size of a tea saucer. Now that my kids are young adults the patch has reached the size of a wagon wheel.

I have photographed the bit that was free of a load of dog turds dumped unceremoniously smack bang in the middle...Those dogs...no feeling for beauty, have they?

They are edible, I'm told, but the thought of all those dogs
sniffing them and running through them and...well...you know, has always deterred me.

The mini narcissus are in my garden. I tend to buy them or get them as a gift in those pretty floral baskets which are sold from Christmas onwards (up to Easter), and when they have stopped flowering I plant them out in the garden. Two (or rather dozens) for the price of one...I do love a bargain.

So, I'm all ready for being out in my garden. Except...the weather is atrocious. It is cold, near freezing in the night, and raining off and on, and that wind...Brrrrr. Wind chill factor 3 degrees. 

People in warmer climates cannot imagine this, or they have trouble imagining it, but us Wetlanders are desperate for warmth and sunshine by now.

So, bring it on!!!

Visiting Cat - Upheaval!

Good evening, all you cat lovers!
This week is: "we have got a visitor of the feline persuasion" week. This is a re-occuring event in our house, and has been for the last 8 years at least. Do we like this? Ehm...read on....

(This is not my photo, it floated around in cyberspace)

We have a catty family member: Noes. She is a stray, just like our own macho tom, from the same shelter in fact. But that is exactly where all comparison ends!

Where our Viggo can be sweet and cuddly, Noes is not.

Where he is always (well, almost always) cheerful and peppy, Noes is not.

Where he utters the occasional miauw, Noes just growls.

Where he drapes himself happily on your lap, Noes keeps her distance and hides herself in the cupboard.

Where he goes outside to pee and poop (as proper cats do) and amuses himself with the newspaper and assorted envelopes, she comes with a carload of stuff, which is all ab-so-lu-te-ly essential. A litter tray complete with roof, bowls, a scratching post, poop-scoop, etcetera.

Viggo has developed the following strategy when Noes arrives. He deploys this within 10 minutes of her arrival.

1. Watch her with mild curiosity.

2. Check out the scratching post by vigorously scratching it.

3. Check out the dinner bowls.

4. Pee in the litter box (a statement if ever I saw one).

5. Ignore her.

6. When bored - swat her behind, preferably whilst she is attempting to climb the stairs.

Our dog Gina however, has developed a different strategy. Ignore that cat, whatever happens, ignore her. Except when she comes too close to Gina's basket. Then a soft warning growl suffices. Noes freezes, Gina looks the other way (did I growl? are you sure?), Viggo looks on with glee, and there you have it. Stalemate.

Cat lover that I am, I keep trying to make Noes feel welcome. But this cat is hard work. Very, very occasionally I can persuade her to climb my lap, but she is always on edge. The only intimate happy moments we share, is when I fill her bowl. Then she purrs. 

We have her for a week, this time.