A Thread Of Good Memories

[Iam]

I'm glad Anni....it was fun remembering it too!

 

[anni]

My 11 year old son reminded me we have these massive frogs in our pond. When we first moved here I though they were clumps of leaves floating in there, they are so big, until they dive. Giving me IDEAS. :)

 

[Iam]

Ahhh....build some memories with your grandson...teach him how to catch bullfrogs! To eat them you need to skin the legs. Frog's skin not only tastes terrible but it has hallucinogenic qualities.

 

[amethist]

Iam, LOL at the frog jumping contest.

I now have visions of loads of people all different sizes and ages, chasing massive frogs around a stage. Polished wood, but now smelling of pond mud and frog pee. :rofl:

Amethist

 

[Sammy]

Thanks for the frog jumping contest story! It created quite a picture in my mind! Pond mud and frog pee... I have smelled that smell before.

My brother and I once caught a bucket full of crayfish from a lake in Iowa. With my mother, it seemed like nearly anything was fair-game for a meal. I don't know what my brother and I were thinking but dinner was definitely not it. After my mom dropped a couple of the crayfish into the boiling water (we did not think she would actually do it!), we ran back to the lake (no small jog - when you are 8, it seemed like miles) to free the rest of the creatures. We were mortified with our mother and I expect she laughed at us for days. I am not sure I have ever scooped up a bucket of anything so fast.

 

[anni]

OI! I'll bet you kids ran- we caught buckets and BUCKETS of salamanders, and if anyone had tried to taste one would have been horrifed also. They were our PETS, at least for that day and until the bucket smelled and Dad pointed out how unhappy they looked.I had an uncle once, showing off while visiting us pick up a black snake and crack it like a whip, killing it! OH was my mother angry-we had a few in our huge yard and left them alone-noone bothered each other. The brutality was so shocking!

I don't know what frog-pee smells like!! It's got to be one of th smells down at the pond since there are COPIOUS big, fat frogs. A few dam feral cats so maybe what I think is cat urine is frog-pee? Hee! Had never given the matter any thought til now, either-for some reason it makes me want to laugh a LOT! GOOD to know to take off those skins. I have entire days where contact with reality is tough enough without hallucinating some dam thing from eating frog-sking, good grief!! Can you imagine??

Hee! I have a picnic coming up down by the pond. SUCH an hysterical idea to give everyone the job of catching a frog and having a contest-seriously!! It's this next weekend, and actually exactly the sort of thing my 60 year old husband would find completely wonderful to do! If I manage it, DO promise to keep decent pics.( I'm stillll looking for one from last Christmas where I clipped the wires to the (fully decorated) tree and it went WHOOMP. Wanted to post that and husband can't find it-will, though, since it was a PTSD foggy moment which caused the disaster) AND post, if possible.

 

[Sammy]

I think hosting a frog contest would be great fun! Take pictures! We have little leopard frogs in our yard -along with the occasional snapping turtle and snake (when I am watching close enough to see them). Lots of chipmunks that start chirping at some obnoxious hour. I had no idea how noisy they were until relatively recently. They think they own the yard and have given me a good tongue lashing on more than one occasion. Noisy little creatures. Now that is has cooled, I am sleeping with the windows open again (just love listening to the breeze in the trees, the local owl, other random rustling... Not so fond of the skunk that occasionally saunters through the yard!). The chipmunks woke me up early. I wasn't thrilled, but they are awfully cute. As long as they don't chew their way into the house... :naughty:

 

[Iam]

Sounds like you live in the country like us Sammy! I remember once standing out on the deck talking to a friend who lives in California. It was at night and she asked me what all the racket was. I told her it was the frogs and crickets...LOL....she was floored asking me...."I thought you moved up there to get away from all the noise in the city down here!" They can be loud can't they!

Anni, I think it is a wonderful idea to have everyone catch frogs and have a jumping contest. The prize could be that the winning frog doesn't get eaten!! LOL!

On the crayfish story.....oh man, I remember my 3 boys and I caught a humongous one...I mean as long as a 10 gallon aquarium, right?! Our middle son, Tommy, was about 4 years old and a very sensitive guy. Still is. Anyway....like your mom Anni, anything caught was fair game for food. I put the crayfish into a pot of boiling water and Tommy got hysterical. Especially when it made that high pitched screaming sound they make when getting boiled. I put it on the platter, the claws were detatched laying next to it's head. Poor Tommy, oh my, he put the claws back where they were supposed to be and kept poking it saying "Wake up, Wake up!" OMG I traumatized the poor boy, but it was hilarious! LOL>>> Of course, Tommy cried when the ant died in Honey I Shrunk The Kids. A very sensitive boy ;o) Gotta love him ;o)

 

[anni]

OH my!! He'll be telling someone about that in some forum someday- 'there was this crayfish....' :)

Hee! Nothing quiet about living out here, is there? I LOVE it! The owls are the noisiest, after the peeper frogs shush for the year! We have the great horned, and the screech, which make you think there really are some poor demented souls out there haunting the darkest park of the forest-whew. I'm not crazy about late August with whatever on earth bug/locust/cicada makes that awful racket into the wee hours because that is LOUD and drowns out the crickets, which I love to listen to.Then there are the neighbor's collection of feral cats who argu loudly allll night sometimes-there's a racket! I'll take it anyday over the last time we spent a night TRYING to sleep in a very nice hotel in manhattan. You pay a zillion dollars for the privalege of lying on posh pillows while engines, horns, voices and chaos unsues for miles and miles and miles.... no thank you! There's PTSD hell, I think.

I swear am going to see if I can get anyone interested in catching frogs this next weekend and if I can will certainly take pictures! It really is exactly the sort of thing to catch my husband's interest-he's hysterical with getting distracted with BOY things-to-do!

 

[Iam]

I can't wait to see the photos Anni!

I love hearing the coyotes yip and howl.....that is unless it's on my property cause then I know they got one of my goats! My son and I went out one night when we first moved here to see if we could find the frogs making the racket in the little pond he and his godbrother had put in for my birthday. We shined our flashlight looking. The night was dark and cool....it felt like a real adventure for sure! We heard some rustling in the brush a little way off. I shined the flashlight over there and saw the pinpoints of diamonds shining back. At first I thought it was dear, then realized the way the animals were moving were not like deer at all. Oh dang....it's a pack of coyotes. Come on Billy, let's head back into the house! He still remembers that night too. Being new to living in the forest everything seemed so much more wild that it does now. Ha!

On the pond......this is so sweet. My youngest son Billy and his godbrother Scotty were in jr. high. They had been saving their money to by a gocart kit that they could put together. On my birthday they surprised me with a pond they had purchased for me instead of the gocart. Oh my did I cry. I had always wanted an ornamental pond! The boys dug the hole and installed it. Then my other 2 sons and 2 godchildren bought plants and fish for it. It was one of the most touching things I ever have had someone do. Brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it!

And you know what???? I was feeling horribly anxious before writing this and now I FEEL GOOD! Yay!

 

[anni]

Oh Lord yes, the kids! Whoa what a STORY! I'd cry every time I looked at the pond! I remember when my second son was like 8 or so, one of the ladies in our church took me to one side and said WAIT until my birthday. She did not wish to spoil the surprise, but she worked at one of the chi-chi jewelry/gift shops in town. My son and his buddy had gone in, with coins and a dollar bill in a grubby little baggy. We had zero money in those days-I was a big fat mess, being stalked, barely holding things together-if I'd been able to give that child a quarter it would have been a high treat, I can tell you! Well I guess Tom spent a good hour in that shop, this nice lady waited on him while he browsed that shop-she showed him what was in his 'price range' ( nothing, I knew dam well-she must have helped a great deal herself). She just wanted me to know what he'd been up to and the kick she got out of it. My birthday gift was a little, pink glass duck- his 8 year old idea of what I would like so I do. It's front-and-center in my corner cupboard with the rest of the irreplacable objects. In all seriousness I do not think I'll ever have anything more valuable to me.

I don't know why these things take away that awful anxiety-maybe it's the plain old love in those grubby little fingerprints that's so healing, you know?

 

[Iam]

I don't know but these stories sure do make me feel all warm and fuzzy Anni! Your pink glass duck is a priceless treasure! Think of all the flowers our kids picked for us throughout the years! My son's still do that occassionally. We could be over at their place for dinner and taking a walk and next thing I know one of them is tucking a flower behind my ear ;o) Oh my boys do still love me!

I remember once when I was verrrry pregnant with our middle son. Our oldest was 2 years old. I had taken him for a walk in a field. On the other side of the fence at the top of the hill was a field full of clover in full bloom. I had my camera and thought what a GREAT shot it would be to sit Ben in that field with the blooms all around him. Just as I was about to plop him down I realized there was a buzzing sound. You got it, BEES...thousands of BEES! Thank god I realized in time! Achhh! On our way back, he kept dropping his little green and orange plastic harmonica. As he bent to retrieve his dropped toy he saw a daisy. I have the cutest picture of him looking at it (BTW the photo is how I can remember the color of the harmonica LOL). Then he plucked it and offered it to me as if it was the greatest treasure in the world. ;o) ;o) ;o)