It was a beautiful autumn day when I decided it was time to clean the back yard.
The weather was perfect. The sunlight was beaming, the breeze was soft and the giant ash tree had shed the last of its lance-shaped leaflets. Nearby, potato harvest was in full swing. Potato trucks whizzed past my house, kicking dust up in the air.
My first step involved dragging out the many items stored in our backyard and washing things down. There were boxes of kindling, broken trellises, dirty pails, stray fishing hooks, sandbox toys in various stages of their life and more fishing chairs than our family ever uses.
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“Is this a yard sale?” someone jokingly yelled from their pickup truck as they cruised past.
I chuckled. “Sure! What do you need?” I yelled back.
Several years ago, my husband had fenced in a portion underneath our deck where I could store my planters and gardening supplies. It’s a handy little nook — one that doubles as a hiding place for nosy children during their evening games.
These garden supplies joined the mishmash of things on the lawn due for a good washing.
Among the planters was a pail of dirty water. I dumped it out on the yard, grabbed the hose and was about to turn it on, when I spotted something.
I jumped, my mouth open in a silent scream. Shivers crawled up my arm.
There, a few feet away from me, was a huge green frog. It seemed to stare me in the face, almost daring me to turn the water on. The skin on its throat quivered in sync with my racing heart.
I didn’t move.
Ever since I can remember, I’ve been afraid of frogs. I can remember a time when I shook violently for hours after one was thrown at my face by a teasing “friend,” whom I haven’t talked to since.
I squeezed my body against a deck post, as far from the frog as I could. I didn’t take my eyes off it as I slowly inched around the post and towards safety. Its gaze kept following me.
I stole a quick glance to my left to check if the coast was clear. Much to my horror, there another giant frog, bigger than the first one. Then I saw another, and another. I was completely surrounded!
I screamed as I quick-stepped toward the stairs leading up to my back door. I bounded up the steps so quickly, my feet barely touched the floor.
“Hon-eeeeeeeey!” I yelled, tearing open the back door, although I knew full well my husband was at the shop half a mile away.
I slammed the door behind me and looked out the back window to see if the gross glaring ogres were following me. My hands were shaking so hard that they looked like they were vibrating as I fumbled to close the drapes.
A few minutes later, I texted my husband.
“You need to come home now! We have a problem.”
After what seemed like an eternity, I heard the familiar roar of a John Deere Gator approaching. I heard footsteps coming up the back steps.
They stopped half way up. I opened the back door and peeked out.
“They’re all over!” I cried. “All over the yard. I’m not cleaning another inch until they’re all gone.”
“What are you talking about?” he asked, eyeing the stuff strewn across the yard.
“Frogs!” I sputtered, “Like the plague in Egypt!”
“Don’t tell me you let them out!” He was already running back down the stairs and, much to his horror, the frogs that he had painstakingly gathered as fishing bait were making a break for freedom.
Those darn creatures, who a few minutes ago had seemed ready to pounce on me, where now jumping for their lives as my husband frantically tried to recapture them with his bare hands.
I dared to ease my way onto the deck and to the top of the stairs.
“I’m not cleaning another inch until they’re all gone!” I repeated, just in case he didn’t hear me the first time.
“Goodness!” I could hear him muttering as he crawled all over the yard, picking frogs, “There were at least 60 in that pail.”
Sixty!
I shuttered and raced back inside the house.
A few minutes later, I heard the whirring of the high pressure hose and the clanging of pots as my under the deck storage compartment was washed down by a handsome, though quite irritated gentleman, who has hopefully learned never to store his beloved bait where his dear wife can release it.
Whether every single amphibian was accounted for, I didn’t ask. I am better off not knowing, I think.
Karen Maendel lives at Elm River Colony near Oakville, Man., where she teaches a number of high school courses and Grades 3-8 social studies.