End of Summer

It's the last weekend of the summer, and I was doing chores, clearing out weeds that have grown all through out the garden. As I was changing the oil in my car, couldn't help but notice how wonderful the weather was. The sun was warm. The air was very clear with a slight breeze that hinted at cooler temperatures on the way. For a bit thoughts of the season changing bounced about in my head. Memories of musings on the end of summer from the year before preoccupied my mind as I was cleaning up from my chores. Then I noticed it. A frog, a real live frog in my back yard. There he was sitting on the roof of the mason bee house on the side of the back yard shed.



Of course I called to everyone else in the family to come and have a look. Misce, Karl and Tom all came out and we all ogled the frog. Tom, Karl and I held him and let him jump about and even let him crawl on our arms and legs. Since we are all shutterbugs, we took many photos always hoping for that special one.



The frog was quite patient with all the attention we gave him, allowing Tom to hold him in his hands.



In the end we released him into the taller grass in the back yard. We hoped he was none the worse for wear.



This little serendipitous visit lit up the rest of the afternoon, and took away the drudgery of the chores. Since the camera was already out, Misce caught on camera some other visitors to our backyard. There was the occasional but very colorful Monarch butterfly, like the one we saw a few days ago.



As well as the ever present busy bees.



The day ended with colorful skies much like those a week ago.



It was a most pleasant day, the kind that you savor as much as you can while they last and fondly remember in less pleasant circumstances.