And now while May slowly loses its days to another month, the rains are hard to come by and the temperature rises even when night falls so deep into midnight, when it is supposed to be cool and breezy outside, and of course in the living room.
Strange weather, really.
So the ground are so dry nowadays that some afternoons ago I decided to weed out the backyard with unwanted growths, having no troubles whatsoever with muddy soil that get stuck in the slippers I wear. I had once popped the idea of landscaping the whole area with Bermuda grasses to my wife—-about a week ago—- but even I had scoffed when she mentioned to me that it would cost nearly ten thousand bucks to have it done by gardeners from the plant store across the highway. What do you actually call these establishments that sells plants and flowers in pots. I actually have no idea as of this moment.
So for now, the bermudas or carabao grasses would have to wait and I’ve got to contend myself of laboring towards manually eliminating the weeds for now (which can actually grow towards knee level when left unattended for so long) and my oh my, it was so painstaking an activity that my muscles ache all night long after that, and when I woke up the next morning, I could barely walk.
When I was scything the weeds, I had discovered that frogs were ensconced tightly in some nooks and corners of the waterless ground. I noticed this sight immediately for it was certainly a bit of an aberration to see frogs while water is so absent in an area. Frogs means water or rain. And rain means tadpoles and croaking reverberations in the night.
I then wonder how these amphibians can keep up with the arid surroundings even when I know that usually they soak themselves in cool water almost all the time. To be sure, it must have meant that frogs have developed adaptation schemes to combat queer weather situation and atypical habitats. Now perhaps there comes the answer to the momentary query of where do frogs goes when the rains haven’t come for a long, long time. They hide themselves in darkened nooks and crevices in the ground, behind and under mossy stones and shady plants, over misty soil where sunrays could not dry up thoroughly.
This reminds me of an episode of one of my favorite television show when I was a kid, Life On Earth. One unforgettable discussion there was this very strange looking fresh-water fish who can survive for months and months to come even when the ground become so dry that the soil is caked all throughout, like in a span of desert that is so cruel to any shrubbery.
I remember how the host Mr. David Attenborough—-he with the effervently musky voice—had dug about a couple of feet into the dry ground and grabbed a morsel of mud formation which he then dropped into a huge basin full of water. And then lo and behold, the pack of solidified mud started to move and slowly a funny looking fish swam away like it was just another day in the river.
It was so amazing how a water creature could survive for so long without water, breathing dry air and being stuck in cakes of mud like a frozen caveman; in order to wait for the rain to finally come and when the water rises again, the strange fish wiggles away into the world where it usually thrive on, and start another cycle in its life span.
Could you imagine a fish surviving out of the water for far too long, like half a year at a time? I couldn’t. But I remember that there was one fish that could actually do that. Therefore presenting an exception to that famous euphemism of being a “fish out of a water”, like I am so miserable now that I am like a fish out of the water.
Amazing survivability this fish has. And also those frogs in our backyard.( This is a repost from May 19, 2007)
Frogs V.2
( A repost from May 28, 2007)
I have some thoughts that I haven’t had elaborated in my earlier post entitled “Frogs” and I can’t seem to get still without scratching this itch, these questions left in my mind. In that previous post, I have pondered on how frogs and other water-loving creatures survived when rains does not fall for a lengthy period of time; this upon observing that frogs actually deposit themselves in shady areas like spongy crevices underneath fairly size stones and behind leafy plants located in areas where the sun could not penetrate that much.
I see them frogs laying still and unmoving even if I make some hushing noise, apparently determined to hibernate as they read the climate so well—-no rains, therefore we stand still. Amazing tenacity they have for to stand still is to perish where to us humans, we need to move to survive, we could not stand still or else we fail to survive. But frogs could stand still and still survive. In this manner, they could be a better specie—-than we humans.
Now I kept thinking that the frogs I see on our backyard while the rains haven’t come are exactly of no use to me that despite the fact that they aren’t what we could consider as pest—-like locusts ravaging the ricefields or mosquitoes rummaging on our blood—-I had thought of getting rid of them completely, hauling them one by one from the shady places they hide themselves and throw them out of the fence.
Yet I felt that I could be completely unfair to them since they aren’t really a pest in the purest sense except that I do not like them leaping and creeping around the pathways when I am navigating the areas in the backyard. Their dark and slimy skin seems to be an odd sight to me.
I had pondered if in fact frogs are really of use to us human beings. They couldn’t be foodstuff except for some specie plying cleaner locations like ricefields and natural ponds. They can’t also be pets for only stranger individuals had kept frogs as pets; like the ones I saw on Ripley’s Believe It Or Not!
Although I know for a fact that they eat or lick mosquitoes in through their all-too-lengthy tongues and one can say they could help control or regulate widespread mosquito infestations in our environment. But why do we need them when we can just hie off to the nearby grocery store and buy Baygon insect spray or we can just light up a mosquito repellent that we can buy in the sari-sari store across the street. Maybe in the ancient days when the Germans hadn’t yet invented Baygon, that could have been the time that we needed lots of frogs in our surroundings.
But now, I wonder why they are here, croaking at rainy nights and serenading songs that we ain’t really pond of.
In our elementary days, we are given basic scientific lessons on the web of life. I remember that so well including those charts that exhibits different food groups that we need to consume in order to live a healthy and well-rounded lives; you know those rhythmic annotations that says “ang itlog ay pampabilog ng mukha”, “and gulay ay pampakinis ng kutis”, such and such thing.
And in the web of life, we are taught that every creature is of importance to nature and to earth’s existence, that trees could help strengthen the soil and thus prevent erosion, snakes could help minimize rat infestations in the fields, plants spew much-needed oxygen into the air, birds and butterflies can spread seeds for them to grow in a more widespread manner, anteaters help plow the ground in order that seeds could easily grow, fishes give food and nutrients to mankind, and mankind….and mankind….oh by the way, I forgot how mankind could be beneficial to nature; I hope someone could remind me.
And so that’s how the web of life goes; and intermingling process of creatures that could be helpful to each other and to nature in general; that could be conceptualized also in that lesson we are taught as “food chains”—-frogs eating mosquitoes, snakes eating frogs, eagles eating snakes, man eating eagles…such and such thing. I wonder how eagles really taste. Must have been just like chicken.
Now let’s go back to frogs—despite that they could help minimize mosquito infestations, we all know by now that Baygon could be better regulators. Have frogs lost their importance in this world? Are they the vestiges of an old and obsolete web of life, that now we have a new form or web?
Snglguy had once stated that frogs are good barometers of our environment. But what if man could one day invent highly-advanced equipment that could monitor our environment with razor-sharp accuracy, like missile guided Tomahawks that George Bush have? Then, frogs would simply lose every bit of reason to be croaking ugly night songs when the rain comes. Maybe modernity have started to creep into the web of life as we know it, that machines and equipments is starting to dictate another form of system in this world we call Earth that just like in the movies we see, machines could one day rule the world.
It is a scary thought sometimes. But it is just a thought.( A repost from May 19, 2007)
It’s both startling and astonishing how the weather behaves strangely nowadays. In the initial days of March, when summer was supposed to be ushered in gradually, the rains came pouring in, like an unexpected visitor whom one does not know exactly how to receive—-had it came for a bountiful afternoon chatter over bristling cups of coffee or had just got to stop by due to a vital intent?
And now while May slowly loses its days to another month, the rains are hard to come by and the temperature rises even when night falls so deep into midnight, when it is supposed to be cool and breezy outside, and of course in the living room.
Strange weather, really.
So the ground are so dry nowadays that some afternoons ago I decided to weed out the backyard with unwanted growths, having no troubles whatsoever with muddy soil that get stuck in the slippers I wear. I had once popped the idea of landscaping the whole area with Bermuda grasses to my wife—-about a week ago—- but even I had scoffed when she mentioned to me that it would cost nearly ten thousand bucks to have it done by gardeners from the plant store across the highway. What do you actually call these establishments that sells plants and flowers in pots. I actually have no idea as of this moment.
So for now, the bermudas or carabao grasses would have to wait and I’ve got to contend myself of laboring towards manually eliminating the weeds for now (which can actually grow towards knee level when left unattended for so long) and my oh my, it was so painstaking an activity that my muscles ache all night long after that, and when I woke up the next morning, I could barely walk.
When I was scything the weeds, I had discovered that frogs were ensconced tightly in some nooks and corners of the waterless ground. I noticed this sight immediately for it was certainly a bit of an aberration to see frogs while water is so absent in an area. Frogs means water or rain. And rain means tadpoles and croaking reverberations in the night.
I then wonder how these amphibians can keep up with the arid surroundings even when I know that usually they soak themselves in cool water almost all the time. To be sure, it must have meant that frogs have developed adaptation schemes to combat queer weather situation and atypical habitats. Now perhaps there comes the answer to the momentary query of where do frogs goes when the rains haven’t come for a long, long time. They hide themselves in darkened nooks and crevices in the ground, behind and under mossy stones and shady plants, over misty soil where sunrays could not dry up thoroughly.
This reminds me of an episode of one of my favorite television show when I was a kid, Life On Earth. One unforgettable discussion there was this very strange looking fresh-water fish who can survive for months and months to come even when the ground become so dry that the soil is caked all throughout, like in a span of desert that is so cruel to any shrubbery.
I remember how the host Mr. David Attenborough—-he with the effervently musky voice—had dug about a couple of feet into the dry ground and grabbed a morsel of mud formation which he then dropped into a huge basin full of water. And then lo and behold, the pack of solidified mud started to move and slowly a funny looking fish swam away like it was just another day in the river.
It was so amazing how a water creature could survive for so long without water, breathing dry air and being stuck in cakes of mud like a frozen caveman; in order to wait for the rain to finally come and when the water rises again, the strange fish wiggles away into the world where it usually thrive on, and start another cycle in its life span.
Could you imagine a fish surviving out of the water for far too long, like half a year at a time? I couldn’t. But I remember that there was one fish that could actually do that. Therefore presenting an exception to that famous euphemism of being a “fish out of a water”, like I am so miserable now that I am like a fish out of the water.
Amazing survivability this fish has. And also those frogs in our backyard.
Frogs V.2
( A repost from May 28, 2007)
I have some thoughts that I haven’t had elaborated in my earlier post entitled “Frogs” and I can’t seem to get still without scratching this itch, these questions left in my mind. In that previous post, I have pondered on how frogs and other water-loving creatures survived when rains does not fall for a lengthy period of time; this upon observing that frogs actually deposit themselves in shady areas like spongy crevices underneath fairly size stones and behind leafy plants located in areas where the sun could not penetrate that much.
I see them frogs laying still and unmoving even if I make some hushing noise, apparently determined to hibernate as they read the climate so well—-no rains, therefore we stand still. Amazing tenacity they have for to stand still is to perish where to us humans, we need to move to survive, we could not stand still or else we fail to survive. But frogs could stand still and still survive. In this manner, they could be a better specie—-than we humans.
Now I kept thinking that the frogs I see on our backyard while the rains haven’t come are exactly of no use to me that despite the fact that they aren’t what we could consider as pest—-like locusts ravaging the ricefields or mosquitoes rummaging on our blood—-I had thought of getting rid of them completely, hauling them one by one from the shady places they hide themselves and throw them out of the fence.
Yet I felt that I could be completely unfair to them since they aren’t really a pest in the purest sense except that I do not like them leaping and creeping around the pathways when I am navigating the areas in the backyard. Their dark and slimy skin seems to be an odd sight to me.
I had pondered if in fact frogs are really of use to us human beings. They couldn’t be foodstuff except for some specie plying cleaner locations like ricefields and natural ponds. They can’t also be pets for only stranger individuals had kept frogs as pets; like the ones I saw on Ripley’s Believe It Or Not!
Although I know for a fact that they eat or lick mosquitoes in through their all-too-lengthy tongues and one can say they could help control or regulate widespread mosquito infestations in our environment. But why do we need them when we can just hie off to the nearby grocery store and buy Baygon insect spray or we can just light up a mosquito repellent that we can buy in the sari-sari store across the street. Maybe in the ancient days when the Germans hadn’t yet invented Baygon, that could have been the time that we needed lots of frogs in our surroundings.
But now, I wonder why they are here, croaking at rainy nights and serenading songs that we ain’t really pond of.
In our elementary days, we are given basic scientific lessons on the web of life. I remember that so well including those charts that exhibits different food groups that we need to consume in order to live a healthy and well-rounded lives; you know those rhythmic annotations that says “ang itlog ay pampabilog ng mukha”, “and gulay ay pampakinis ng kutis”, such and such thing.
And in the web of life, we are taught that every creature is of importance to nature and to earth’s existence, that trees could help strengthen the soil and thus prevent erosion, snakes could help minimize rat infestations in the fields, plants spew much-needed oxygen into the air, birds and butterflies can spread seeds for them to grow in a more widespread manner, anteaters help plow the ground in order that seeds could easily grow, fishes give food and nutrients to mankind, and mankind….and mankind….oh by the way, I forgot how mankind could be beneficial to nature; I hope someone could remind me.
And so that’s how the web of life goes; and intermingling process of creatures that could be helpful to each other and to nature in general; that could be conceptualized also in that lesson we are taught as “food chains”—-frogs eating mosquitoes, snakes eating frogs, eagles eating snakes, man eating eagles…such and such thing. I wonder how eagles really taste. Must have been just like chicken.
Now let’s go back to frogs—despite that they could help minimize mosquito infestations, we all know by now that Baygon could be better regulators. Have frogs lost their importance in this world? Are they the vestiges of an old and obsolete web of life, that now we have a new form or web?
Snglguy had once stated that frogs are good barometers of our environment. But what if man could one day invent highly-advanced equipment that could monitor our environment with razor-sharp accuracy, like missile guided Tomahawks that George Bush have? Then, frogs would simply lose every bit of reason to be croaking ugly night songs when the rain comes. Maybe modernity have started to creep into the web of life as we know it, that machines and equipments is starting to dictate another form of system in this world we call Earth that just like in the movies we see, machines could one day rule the world.
It is a scary thought sometimes. But it is just a thought.
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