.... And Nature Sings ??...........

Tim searching for Mr. Toad & Co.













The Sunday night Toad Quartet







The good news is, when your kids are out of the house and responsible, you don't have to worry when the phone rings at 12:00 midnight. They are not out driving when the crazies are out, they are not calling with car trouble, or to tell you they're running late coming home. For empty

nesters, especially ones like us with 4 dogs (courtesy of Kendall's soft heart) it means the dogs have gotten out or are too loud. Actually, we put them in the garage at night so they have soft beds and good airflow, right, who am I kidding, it's because they are the neighborhood alarm system when a siren sounds or with any kind of lights flashing in the night.

So, imagine my suprise when the phone rang right at midnight Sunday night. We had been in bed just 15 minutes or so (us old folks were watching the Olympics) and Tim's phone went off. Since I wasn't going to work because I'm sick, I got up to spare him having to. I saw the number on the phone and saw that it was 347----- and handed the phone to Tim as I said " I think it's one of the neighbors". ( Hey, my night-time courtesy only goes so far!) As he's still wearing his CPAP facemask he listens and then tells the neighbor that the noise they are hearing is the toads in our backyard. The noise HAS been pretty bad the last couple of weeks. It intially sounds like a ceiling fan WAY off balance, making a loud grating noise. Tim has the CPAP machine which puts out air and a good "white" noise and I wear ear plugs, so we can tolerate the croaking, but honestly, I have been suprised that no one's complained sooner. Our good friends and neighbors behind us, that we talk to almost daily, have never said a word..... I digress. Anyway, next thing Tim is out searching for toads wearing his little headstrap light; it straps on his head and gives him light from the forehead area. I think some joggers wear them, he got it to wear when he's working on something so no one has to hold the light for him. So, he is thrashing through the banana plants and then doing a perimeter search of the fenceline to find the offending croakers. This was too good an opportunity for me to pass up recording exactly HOW LOUD the crazy toads can get, so I grabbed my camera to record at least the sound. I think I scared him to death when he parted the leaves and saw me standing there, HA! We looked around for a good 15-20 minutes and Tim caught 4 toads; the bucket they're in is a chlorine tablet bucket for the pool, that holds 35 lbs.!! I'm sure Tim missed Kendall that night, because this is something they used to do together often & Kendall was really good at finding the toads (sometimes they would have more than 10 at a time to relocate). BTW: I don't touch frogs, I'm not even good at locating them, I was just out there for moral support. Poor Tim, by the time he got back from relocating the caught toads to our neighborhood bayou, the remaining toads were croaking again,,,, my response was to turn on the flood lights in the backyard, direct the lights at the pond, and go to bed. Light seems to dampen the croaking substantially; Tim was good with that answer since it was 12:30 and he had to get up for work, so he showered and called it a night. What a crazy night.... really made me miss Kendall!!

Here's the audio, the toads start up good and loud at about 1:18............you're not going to believe it unless you listen!