The Frog

April 2010
It was almost spring time. The birds were chirping, baby fish were born, baby birds were hatching, and of course flowers were blooming. If you walked outside on a nice night you could

here the tree frogs in the distance singing a song in order to find their mate. Spring is one of my favorite times of year. It always seems such a joyous time. A time for a fresh new start to life. Unfortunately, not every one can have a fresh new start in their life especially when they are the prey.
When I got home from school, I looked out across our garden through the kitchen window. The flowers were dancing in the wind and the sun was shining warmly. I was looking at my fish that were in the pond just below the deck. We have a small pond with a water fall, that leads down; by a stream, to a waste deep pond. The deep pond is mostly where all of the fish are. They don't seem to take a liking to the top pond because they always manage to swim down the stream in order to reach the other pond. I was admiring the water lillies and the lilly pads when all of a sudden something caught my eye. I could see something in the top pond move around, around, and around. I ran outside to see what it was and to my horror found something most dreadful. A snake had a little frog in his mouth and the frog was screaming. Such an awful noise came out of the frogs mouth. So very high pitch, but my instant reaction was to rescue the frog quickly before he was eaten alive. (Most people don't know that all snakes are not poisonous. There are only a few species that inject poison into their prey, so the frog was not dead or paralyzed at all). I grabbed the snake by his neck and put my fore finger and thumb on the edges of his mouth in order to pry his mouth open. I was then able to grab the still screaming frog out of the snakes mouth. 

Of course I had no idea what the snake was, but he was slippery. He began to wrap his tail around my arm and was squeezing. I couldn't believe how this tiny little body was able to produce so much force. I still had hold of the snakes head, but barely. He was slipping fast out of my fingers. I quickly dropped the snake in the water and he suddenly stricked out at me. I quickly stood back, still with the frog in my hand, and felt something warm on my hand. When I looked, of course the frog weed on me and it went all over my hand. I checked the frog over for any puncture wounds and the only damage on the frog was an abrasion on his belly. I took him out the front of my house and released him in our front pond, so he was safe(for now) and protected. The front pond consist of many rocks out lining the bank, making it very difficult for snakes to crawl on the rock. 
To this day, I still believe there is the same frog in our front pond. Every year there is the same colored frog and size sitting on one of the rocks, watching me every time I go outside to feed the fish. I guess when something wees on you, its a form of gratitude.