By John Whale
It was the hour before midnight, the moon shone brightly and some very welcome rain, which had been falling since I went to bed had finally stopped.
From out of a rain drenched garden, I heard a distinctive voice calling out, or more precisely I should say, I heard a unique creature singing out in sheer delight, thanking mother nature for sending such a generous amount of life-giving rain. It was as a frog sitting on a rock in the fishpond outside my bedroom window.
I could not recall when I had last heard a frog croak, possibly some time a few years ago, long before our recent run of record dry spells that we have been enduring and long, long before the bushfires had swept across our nation.
I got up, switched the outside light on and dressed in pyjamas and slippers walked over to thank him for his choral tribute to the rain. He sat bright eyed, a smile on his face, wearing that famous shiny green coat of his, surrounded by an adoring fan club of goldfish.
I assured him that he could become a permanent residence in my garden pond and even suggested that he might invite the rest of his family to join us. The current tenants, a family of 6 very spoilt goldfish seemed to welcome him with open fins.
I returned to my bed, as once more the rain began to fall and lay in silent contemplation, thinking about how we are all such an integral part of the environment, each of us dependant on mother nature’s bountiful gifts and to whom we should extend our love and protect her from the slings and arrows of man-made misfortune.
Ask not for whom the frog croaks, it croaks for thee!
