Bullfrogs Just Happen

My Bullfrog Friend
Saturday of Memorial Day weekend, the weekend of my moving-to-Kansas anniversary (#5 this year), and the Hub and I are taking it easy. We were going to go to the Top-Fuel drag races this year, but the cost of the tickets outweighed my overall interest, so we decided to stay home and enjoy the beautiful weather. Fully sunscreened and bug-sprayed, I headed outside where the Hub was already firing up his Allis-Chalmers D-14 tractor and getting ready to do some mowing. I had some plants to put in my flower garden, as well as some horticultural rearranging to do, and it was warm enough to put one of the lizards in the play pen to get some sun, so I settled into that. Floyd got to hang out with me on that particular day, so he nestled down in the grass and soaked up the sunshine while I proceeded to transplant mint into another garden and replace it with some of the new plants (lavender, moonflower, hibiscus, and for shits and giggles, one tomato plant). After a little while the Hub went inside to find that his mother (Belle) had phoned and invited us to go fishing that night. She and my father-in-law (Jack) were going down south to Louisburg to fish with her brother Joe at a secluded lake where they had had lots of previous success in supplying what we're hoping will become the annual family fish-fry. In any case, my Hub has been wanting to go fishing practically all year, and I'm always up for a spontaneous change in plans, so we accepted the invite and rushed to get ready to go.
After a dinner at Hillsdale Bank Barbeque (which is one of my top 5 favorite BBQ joints around KC) we made it to the lake to meet Joe, who had with him his wife Shirley, their youngest son Alex, and two of Alex's friends. Since last summer, the lake had fallen victim to some moss around the banks, so the best place to cast was off of the dock or the bridge across the dam. Eventually we all ended up on the dam bridge, where you could face the lake on one side and the approximately 25-30 foot drop to the concrete slope of the dam itself on the other side.
My father-in-law Jack and my Hub were reeling in fish after fish, mostly Blue Gill and Crappie (I love that). Once dusk began to fall upon us, things slowed a bit, and our attention was averted to a wrack of commotion from Alex and his buddies.
The three boys ran across the bridge, yelling and laughing, and holding something at the end of Alex's fishing pole. It was a giant bullfrog, alive and squirming, hooked through the mouth.
Now, I know that boys will be boys (or men will be men, for that matter), but I was pissed. Perhaps a double standard since we were out there fishing, but my heart was ripped with the cruelty of the boys and the pathetic and vulnerable state of the frog. Joe and the Hub and I immediately set to freeing the big guy. The boys were cool about us rescuing it--I think they were more into showing it off than torturing it--and they went on about their way, muddy and aloof. The frog struggled in the beginning, but as I supported its legs and my Hub gingerly removed the hook, he calmed down and settled into my hands.
I was instantly in love. Not only was he slimy and green, but we had rescued it (which is important, since I'm the constant nurturer that I am). As Jack and Joe chuckled about the possibility of having frog legs at the fish fry, I was pleading with the Hub to let me take it home. Okay, so it was half-hearted pleading. I knew his place was there at the lake, but to think that he could be in the terrarium in our living room and I would get to see him and hear him sing every day was like a fairy tale. Granted, he could stretch out and touch both sides of that little terrarium. It's not like I would have taken him home if the Hub had said yes. Okay, I would have considered it.
Anyway, I held the frog and we got some pictures, and he was as docile as he could be as I cooed him and cleaned his mouth and feet of moss and debris. Belle and Shirley were getting a kick out of him, too, and I opened my hands slightly so they could see him and the Hub could pet him. He just laid in my hands peacefully--until, of course, the Hub touched him.
It was at that precise moment that he lunged from my loosened grip--off of the wrong side of the bridge.
I screamed and immediately burst into tears, not even hearing the thud as he landed upside down on the concrete below. The Hub grabbed me and hugged me, holding me away from the scene of the crime so I couldn't see the frogs twisted body down below. Feeling like I had been punched in the stomach, the tears flowed down my face, expecting the worst. I looked over the side of the bridge and saw him, stretched out and distorted like a child's rubber toy.

Nature has a funny way of keeping you in check.

The guys were talking about what a fall the frog had taken and naturally, the noise he had made when he hit the concrete, but my father-in-law interjected, "I don't know. I wouldn't be surprised if he bounced back. We used to shoot those things with 22s when we were kids, and they'd still be hopping all over the place. They're tough."
As Jack was giving him an indirect pep-talk, my mother-in-law Belle took to trying to revive him by tapping him with her lure. When she was finally able to brush it against his belly, he woke up and flipped over to right himself, dazed and likely concussed, but alive. I nearly passed out in a wave of relief and emotion. He was alive. Not altogether well, but alive.
We were all amazed, except maybe Jack, who just smiled to himself. He's funny like that. He can be as ornery as any little boy out there, but he has a kind heart deep down that he thankfully passed on to his son (though my Hub's is not as easy to get to).
The frog finally took a couple of leaps down the side of the dam in the direction of the creek below, and I knew he'd be okay. We all adjourned to Joe and Shirley's house for a campfire (and marshmallows!) shortly thereafter, leaving my frog to complete his recovery in private.

At the end of the night, when it was long past everyone's bedtime and the Hub and I were driving back to the homestead, we got to talking about the pond that the Hub wants to dig in our back yard. We have 10 acres, and a portion of that (our current camping area) is on 100-year flood plain, so he's thinking that a 2-or-3 acre pond would be perfect right there. We've talked about it on numerous occasions, and if we decide to stay in our house, the Hub would like to have it dug at least by his 30th birthday.
We threw ideas back and forth about the different kinds of fish and other creatures we'd have in our pond, when the Hub said, "You know, one of my uncles told me that there's not a pond out there that doesn't have bluegill in it. When the birds and other creatures travel from one pond to the next, they bring along all kinds of things--from fish eggs to plant seeds."
"Bullfrog eggs?" I asked.
"Yeah. Bullfrogs too. You don't stock a pond with bullfrogs like you would catfish. Bullfrogs just happen. Their eggs get transferred from pond to pond like anything else."
"Bullfrogs just happen," I repeated, pleased.
He smiled at me, "Yep, they just happen."