Sunday, May 18, 2008

my New York nature

The black soil of my home state is why I despair of ever being any kind of gardener in Georgia. I used to fling seeds to the ground in the springtime and yell "good luck!" and, lo and behold, flowers and vegetables with hardly a drop of sweat. My family's home is on a pond that feeds into the New York City reservoir system so there are a lot of rules and regulations about what can happen around this little pond. I have read about the disappearance of amphibians all around the world to either or both climate change and pollution so I was happy to see this whopper lurking in the weeds. Over the next few days I will pay more attention as I walk the property and see if the numbers seem down from what I remember. I wonder if the fairly recent invasion of Canadian geese affected the frog folk. The pond (which used to be a lake) used to be ringed with giant willow trees. I spent a good portion of my childhood about 40 feet up in one of those trees. One by one they are dying. My dad says for the most part, from natural causes as it's been 50 or 60 years since they were planted. Even trees have a life span.

3 comments:

Joyce said...

We are blessed with that kind of soil too. All we need is a bit of rain and the energy to plant. Oh yes, and a lot of weeding.

Anonymous said...

Awesome frog! And what a great place to grow up... lucky gal!

Judy

Terry Grant said...

The frog photo is fabulous. We have frogs on our new property. I have heard them, but not yet seen them. Willow trees are, in tree life terms, really short-lived, but they grow fast, so someone should be planting new ones!