The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County

"He's good enough for one thing,
I should judge he can outjump any frog in Calaveras County."
from _The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
and Other Sketches_ (1867) by Mark Twain

Once again we have had a touch of excitement at the Thompson homestead as a result of errant wildlife, and from the title of this post and the quote above I'm sure you can guess what species we were dealing with this time.

Little Bit went into the bathroom yesterday morning and promptly came running out again. "Aaaaah! Mom! There's a frog on the toilet!"

I went in to look and sure enough, a tiny tree frog had somehow managed - to this point I'm still not quite sure how - to get himself inside the house and into our bathroom. The WGH is convinced the little froggie came up through the toilet itself, i.e. via our septic system. (Which, by the way, does not bode well in my mind, for how did he get inside the septic system in the first place?)

Anyway, as soon as I reached for it - and yes, I did have all intentions of picking it up and escorting it outside - the frog decided he was going into the toilet. I watched him swim around for a minute, and then I'll be darned if he didn't swim right down into the flush hole. Little Bit and I weren't quite sure what to do at that point. After waiting for a couple of minutes we decided he wasn't coming back out again, so I did the only logical thing - I flushed the toilet.

And, of course - you guessed it - the frog reappeared, swimming furiously.

Good grief.

I told Little Bit to get me a slotted spoon and then open the front door. With said slotted spoon (which was actually a strainer, quite flat, perfect for the purpose for which I intended to use it), I fished the frog out of the commode and proceeded to carry it to the front door.

You can guess what happened next.

Yep, he jumped - right onto the carpet. I chased him around for a minute, trying to steer him toward the open front door, when I noticed that Sebastian was sitting at Little Bit's feet, watching the show with what can only be described as a feline look of amusement. Fortunately, Little Bit had the foresight and good sense to grab the cat before he decided the frog was a battie-ball. I managed to get the frog back onto the strainer - for a minute. Of course he was back on the floor in no time, leaping around the living room. I never knew a tiny tree frog could jump like that.

Finally giving up on trying to get him back onto the spoon, I rather guided him toward the front door. Once I coaxed him outside, I told him he was on his own getting back to his tree and shut the door behind him.

Now, don't you envy us living in the country?

JT is due back from ThrillerFest today, so I'm working feverishly to get this draft finished so that she and the WMVR can peruse it and give me their considered (and thoroughly objective, ha-ha) opinions. I broke the 80,000-word mark last night, and this was after I had to delete a few things because of something I changed. It's a domino effect the writers in the audience can appreciate. You can change one little thing and then you have to find all the references to that one little thing all the way through the manuscript and fix those. Still, I've made some seriously good progress, and with just a bit more effort I'm confident I'll be able to wrap this up and let it go in the next day or two.

Provided I don't have to chase any more frogs around my living room.

Read a book. It's good for you.

=) JB