Man-day:Frogmaggedon

In Man-day by Jensguy18 Comments

We live in Tucson, Arizona, famous for our omnipresent sunshine, except for a couple of months during the summer when we get our Midsummer Monsoons.

What the Monsoons mean is that there is a period, from the end of June to the first couple weeks of September, where it could conceivably rain every afternoon.  While this is true in theory, it never happens.  The wet Mexican air moving north creates strong storms, but they aren’t overly large in area.  In some cases you could watch a gully-washer develop across the street while remaining completely dry on your front porch.  Whenever your number comes up though you WILL get doused.  We had a couple of 2-inches-in-one-hour storms hit us the past couple of weeks.

They are spectacular to watch, and I love them except for two things:

The River Wild

When I have to get the kids from school.  We walk our children to school which is uber cool.  We shuttle them across the desert instead of the sidewalk which gives us all a slice of “Little House on the Prairie” adventure as we have seen coyotes, snakes, and javalina  (a southwestern cross between a wild boar and a very large rat) at various times.  One little girl making the trip swears she saw the Chupacabra also, but further verification of this claim will be required.

Javalinas  

El Chupacabra (allegedly. . .)

Part of our trip includes a jaunt through a wash, which generally isn’t a problem, unless it is raining hard, then you learn why those storms are called “gully-washers.”  All of our “rivers” in Tucson are like this, operational only periodically for a couple months a year, but are raging torrents when in service.  So yeah, if it rains at the right time, we have a river in our back yard running between us and our children.  Getting them home requires careful footwork, wet shoes and pants, and quick observational skills to avoid the  pieces of “jumping cactus” floating along the whitewater rapids.  I fully suspect that the severity of this crossing will increase exponentially in the retelling to my children’s children. Looking something like this.

Frogmaggedon

Now let’s talk about the frogs, the stuff of nightmares.

So, in Tucson, we have dozens of breeds of toads and frogs that appear after a rainstorm.  Basically, they lie in suspended animation a few inches into the dirt until it rains during the summer, then they get out and party like it is Spring Break in Daytona Beach.  They eat a ton, mate like Lindsey Lohan, then dig themselves back into the mud for a year. Here’s a picture my son Caleb took on one of the frogs.

The frog women, where they at?

Right next to our house there is a collection pond that gathers all of the runoff water which becomes frog central.  The kids will even go out and catch them because they are kids.

So yeah, you would think we could stand out on our porch at twilight and it would be just like Pirates of the Caribbean, with the awesome sound of hundreds of frogs croaking.

Nope.

We get this: (turn up your volume)

It’s like a thousand tiny goats being choked by gym socks.  ALL NIGHT LONG!!!  The deck from our master bedroom overlooks the frog breeding ground and this is the soundtrack.  I mean if we had fireflies, then maybe. . .  But this. . . Just no. . .

Addendum:

For those who missed it, and completely unrelated, here is Jennifer’s encounter with an ice bucket. . .

Trent

Comments

  1. Reply

    We were actually thinking of moving to Arizona back before we got married, when were engaged and every once in awhile, especially during Winter months, I wish we did, but seeing this made me feel a little less upset that we didn’t!
    Janine Huldie recently posted…6 Ways Puppy & Baby Are SimilarMy Profile

    1. Reply

      Oh, October through May is genuine bliss, and by then the frogs have reburied themselves in the mud. Ans as for the Chupacabra, we need to send an expedition out to find him. Maybe we will find Bigfoot too. I hear he is a snowbird. . .
      Jen’s Guy recently posted…Man-day:FrogmaggedonMy Profile

    1. Reply

      Yep, now imagine that sound setting the romantic mood in your bedroom (if a romantic mood was possible with a toddler, 6 year old, a preteen who never sleeps, actually only the 10 year old boy sleeps, and a neurotic dog.)
      Jen’s Guy recently posted…Man-day:FrogmaggedonMy Profile

    1. Reply

      Yeah, it was pretty epic. It’s amazing how the familiar turned so crazy all of the sudden. The “river” took all of the sediment and deposited it right into the cross street in front of the neighborhood. They had to bring in a scraper to take care of it. They won’t be able to use the “walked home from school in 4 foot snow drifts” tale, so this will have to do.
      Jen’s Guy recently posted…Man-day:FrogmaggedonMy Profile

  5. Reply

    I love frogs. I used to catch them all the time when I was little. My husband thought my love of frogs was merit enough to name our son Kermit. Thankfully, we had girls both times and he got fixed before our luck ran out.

    However, your video is completely freaky! They don’t sound like frogs at all! Weird.

    Wishing you an awesome week!
    Jennifer | The Deliberate Mom recently posted…Homeschool Solutions for the Small HomeMy Profile

    1. Reply

      Yeah, we are convinced they are more demon than frog. And speaking of Kermit, I can do a bang up Kermit impersonation singing “Rainbow Connection.” It kind of set me apart from the other guys Jennifer dated.
      Jen’s Guy recently posted…Man-day:FrogmaggedonMy Profile

  6. Reply

    Nice work on the ice bucket challenge!
    And I totally turned up the volume on the video and scared my kids.
    This reminds me of a time I was driving through Maine late at night, because we had gotten lost looking for moose, and then nightfall came.
    For some odd reason, the sky was absolutely raining frogs. They were everywhere. I was trying to avoid them with my car, but I’m not sure all made it out alive.
    Why did that happen???
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  7. Reply

    So do you often experience biblical plagues, or was this an outlier? Raining toads was one of the travails that God visited on Egypt through Moses. Next come the crickets. If your cattle start becoming afflicted, I would suggest you move out to Arizona with us. Then you would only have to deal with frogs that sound like goats. Oh, and El Chupacabra.
    Jen’s Guy recently posted…Man-day:FrogmaggedonMy Profile

    1. Reply

      Oh, they are most definitely not cute. They will rip a dog open from tail to nose if they get the chance. Also you can smell them long before you see them. They travel in large packs and can be aggressive. But, now that you mention it, the babies actually ARE kind of adorable. . .

    1. Reply

      See, you might be in trouble because those frogs are not going to delve into the dirt and hibernate. Jennifer and I were watching a TV show that showed the huge Boa Constrictors getting loose in Florida along with a couple of Komodo Dragons. Given that choice, I’ll take the frogs, and probably El Chupacabra, all day long. . .

  10. Reply

    Ugh, this made me laugh. And shudder. I really do feel like I need a shower.

    I’m not a fan of frogs – neither chatty ones or the silent type. Although those multi-colored rain forest tree frogs aren’t too bad to look at…

    You’d think we would have more frogs here in Seattle, as it’s ever-so-moist all year long, but I don’t remember seeing one the 8 years I’ve been here. Not that I’d go looking, of course.

    PS – I just shuddered again at the thought of hundreds of frogs making whoopie out my bedroom window. Ugh.
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