Frogs In the Kitchen…

and other Oddities of Living in the East County Wasteland

Last week, three days in a row, I came out to the kitchen to make the coffee in the morning and was greeted by a frog sitting in the dish drainer tray. Now I couldn’t mark it with nail polish like I did the turtles that visited me at Terrapin Station, so I don’t know if it was three frogs or one frog three times.

I knew I saved all those cottage cheese cartons for a reason. Perfect for amphibian relocation. So I toted the little fellow outside and released him in the dog-free part of the yard. I am now closing the window between the kitchen and the deck every night.

Interesting that even here, in a major urban area, I can still find wildlife loose in the house. Of course, we have spiders. And for awhile last spring, ants marched through. And every night on the dog walk route we see snakes. And then we have the kamikaze flies on the porch that spiral in a decreasing circle until they stick on the fly strip dangling from the beam.

There’s lots of action overhead. Ducks. Geese. Eagles. Osprey. Blue Herons. Crows. Gulls. And underground, moles are making labyrinths and mazes in the yard with giant piles of dirt marking their progress. Feral cats roam the fields across the road and sometimes come over to visit the little platform outside Windy’s bedroom window to say hello to Lenny.

Who would have thought Wood Village Hideaway would be a Wildlife Preserve!