Saving One Frog from Another

Nearly every evening after dinner and before bedtime, Patrick, Aiden, and I go on a walk around the pond.  It used to be a daylight walk, but now it has turned into a night time walk.

At some point after dinner, Aiden asks to go for a walk.
He brings me shoes and says, “Go.”
I ask him, “Where do you want to go?”
He answers, “Down.”  {We currently live in a 2nd floor condo.}

 We get our shoes on and grab our flashlights. {Aiden loves his flashlight.}  Aiden has to bring a toy or two along for the walk as well.  Last night, he brought his little stuffed bunny.  Every night is a different adventure.  Aiden stops every few feet exploring the ground around him – checking for ants.  {We are teaching him to be careful of the fire ants.}  We hear a killdeer sing as it flies across the pond.  We see a little earth snake on the path.  Aiden sits down next to it observantly watching and waiting.  Patrick touches it so it slithers along for Aiden to see.  Aiden says, “hissssssss.”

As we return from the path around the pond passing all the other condos, we search for frogs.  We see a large toad.  Usually the frogs just ignore us hoping we can’t see them, but this night we have Anea {our large dog} with us, so the toad jumps away quickly.  Anea follows it and so does Aiden.  He loves that it is jumping away.  Jump, jump, jump!

On the doors of the condos, we see loads of tree frogs – small, bright green tree frogs, large, dull green tree frogs, and many sizes and shades of green in between.  Patrick grabs one of the giant tree frogs off of a light for Aiden to see.  Then, it jumps away, too.  Patrick captures another large tree frog to share with us.  When he shows it to Aiden, liquid shoots everywhere.  It may have landed on Aiden’s face.  {We washed his face when we got home just to be sure.}  Now there are two frogs in Patrick’s hand!  Wait…what just happened?  How did the little tree frog get there?  Apparently, Patrick interrupted the large tree frog’s meal – it was eating the smaller tree frog.  We inadvertently saved the little tree frog and caused the large tree frog much anguish in the process.  Oh, the excitement we have on our outdoor adventures – day or night!

What fun outdoor adventures have you had lately?

Thanks for reading!