About frogs and geese

I am not a big animal lover. I don’t have any pets and I don’t go all crazy whenever there are any animals around. There’s a few animals I think are really cool though, and a few I really cannot stand.

Let’s not talk about the animals I don’t like. I go on and on enough about those, and besides, chances are they are animals that YOU, the reader, like, and well, the one thing worse than saying negative things about someone’s kids is to offend their favourite animal.

The lovely @Megelder suggested I should blog about either goats or frogs. She seems to really like both, I’m kind of neutral about them. The only frog story that comes to mind is from when I was little.

I must have been around 8 or 9, and what me and the boys from my street liked to do, is go catch frogs around the ditches. Back in those days there were huge amounts of them sitting along side the ditches.

We would catch them and keep them in jars. The jar would have plastic with little holes in the top and I would feed the frogs leaves. I caught many things in those days, and I always gave them leaves only and was always surprised they died at some point.

I just had one or two frogs in a jar, but one of the boys in my street had this huge fancy tank with lots of frogs. He would actually look after them properly, and thus he had lots of them and they never died.

I guess I was a little jealous of his fancy frog tank. So one day when he and his parents left by car, I snug into their garden and opened the tank. When they returned there whole garden was covered in frogs.

I never did tell anyone about what I did and I can’t say I felt bad either.

These days I no longer keep animals in jars or anywhere else near me. You can’t help what happens outside of your house though. Right now there is a pond in front of my house, home to 10 very content geese.


They spend their days swimming or lounging around. Usually at a save distance, but sometimes they venture a little to the left and before you know it, they are standing right in front of my house.

Those geese scare me and fascinate me at the same time (a little like some women I know lol). It’s creepy how they can look at you and approach you peak first. Of course, it’s silly to be freaked out, because how else are they supposed to approach?

So far nothing bad has happened during my encounters with my neighbourhood geese, but I do try to keep my distance. I am still traumatized about an incident when I was around 3 years old and a geese stole my nice bread role.

Why does talking about animals always make me think of my childhood?

Comments

Anonymous said…
That was funny reading! Especially the part, where little Natazzz crept into the neighbour garden and ‘rescued’ all the frogs. I have pictures now – a garden full of loud croaking frogs with an empty fancy frog tank.

I also have a childhood memory of a little mouse that I once found. She moved really slowly and so I was able to catch it. I brought it to my Mom. Ok, she was in the kitchen preparing dinner and she was really shock when I showed it to her. So she grabbed the mouse and threw it out of the window (it still lived after that). She explained to me that the reason for its slowness was probably that the mouse was ill. Apart from the fact that it is not allowed bringing mice into kitchens. After that I only brought beetles in cardboard boxes in my room ;P

And about frogs: I saw one yesterday in the forest. It was little and free. And still alive :) and I didn't take it with me ;)

The geese remind me on 'Nils Holgersson'. I watched in when I was little. I loved it! So also a childhood memory.

It seems normal that talking about animals make people think of their childhood.
Natazzz said…
I used to love Nils Holgersson! :-)

Beatles in boxes? lol my sister had a whole collection of matchboxes filled with all kinds of insects. I did use to bring worms and spiders in the house, just to upset my mother lol.

Good to know you no longer collect animals ;-)
Anonymous said…
lol with the frogs. i didn't really fall in love with frogs until a few years ago. they hold a great deal of spiritual meaning among many Native American/First Nations Peoples. In several cultures of the NW, frogs are spiritual go-betweens who can walk in both the physical and spiritual realms. but even without that, as both land and water creatures, they represent me who has spent a great deal of my life in and around water.

geese i like only from a distance. be careful. they can be very mean. i would be devastated to discover you were attacked by geese on your own front lawn. :-)
For several years I was a volunteer doing field research into frog populations for the USGS. I can honestly say that I've had my fill of frogs ;)