Berries and Frogs...

Who knew how much fun you could have in your own backyard? Although our dream is to own a house on a few acres of land, we are loving our yard in our little subdivision right now. We have a creek, a reserved "greenspace" behind us where no one can build, plenty of trees, and lots of "wildlife". Our strawberries are finally ripe (and recovering from the flood), our blackberries are coming in by the bushel, and we have frogs jumping in and out of the creek like crazy! The robins built another nest in the honeysuckle tree, the lightning bugs are out in full force as soon as the sun goes down, and the cicadas just won't give it up (how long do those things last, anyway?). With gas prices being what they are (ridiculous), this is the summer of the backyard...our own, our friends', and our hometown. And you know what? That is so fine with me. We live in a great place, with great friends and family nearby, and if it takes high gas prices and a sluggish economy to make me slow down and enjoy what we do have, then I will take that opportunity and I will cherish it. I'm still not excited about gas being over $4 a gallon, but I'm not going to whine about it (too much) either.


A sample of our strawberries fresh from the patch...Gabe loves to find "red ones", even if they only have one spot of pink on them...they are pretty tasty!

Isabel worked all morning to catch this frog with her friend's net...she finally cornered it in a puddle beneath our deck, and managed to put it in our bug catcher. She was so proud!

Isabel and Gabe decided to name him "Cody". We made a home for him in an old aquarium we had, and even bought some mealworms for him to eat, when we realized that he didn't like cicadas.

After about three days, we decided that Cody looked sad and lonely, and we released him back into the creek to be reunited with his frog family. Isabel's next mission is to get a frog to keep in her room. I'm not so sure about that one...