pond music...

We're enamored of the nighttime bullfrog-serenading going on in the pond. While living in Aumsville, Oregon, thirty years ago, we enjoyed these amphibians on the millrace that bordered our property, which was across the street from a feed mill. (I'm not going to go 'there' now as the mill's practice of putting out poison for their mice had a fateful effect on two of our beloved cats, including the one we got as a kitten when first married. Well...I guess I did go there. heartbreak...) The 'singing' can be considered irritating But, like a gently rolling train in the midwest background, it truly grows on you.

Soon after the first bullfrog commenced his unique arias - a month or so ago - a second one emerged across the pond. Some nights it was obvious they had moved, but still seemed to be facing each other on opposite sides of the pond/island/etc. I took to calling them 'Tristan and Isolde', thinking them star-crossed lovers that yearned to be together but were separated by familial expanse: Mom & Dad didn't approve of a liaison. Then, my visiting sister-in-law googled bullfrogs and announced if they're singing they're both males.

Like most males in the animal world, they have to work hard to attract females. In this case, the females are a bit larger than them. The wily mates not-so-slyly and attractively (???) honk away. When females come to check out the nature-karaoke and are put into some altered state by the males' bravado, they are summarily and quickly jumped on. Nothin' romantic or star-crossed about that.

Just yesterday I heard an NPR story on Wagner's opera, Tristan and Isolde. Well, actually, the drama surrounding the writing of it. While consumed by the T&I story, he was also consumed with passion for his benefactor's wife, Mathilde. By the time of the opera's premier years later, his wife Minna and said mistress Mathilde were both out of the picture. And Cosima Liszt von Bulow (Franz Liszt's middle daughter) - wife of Hans von Bulow, a famous conductor who was, in fact, collaborating with Liszt on the opera and conducted its premiere performance - had just borne Wagner a daughter. She would bear him a second child and be pregnant with a third before officially leaving husband-von-Bulow for fifteen years of marriage with Wagner. At his death, she clung to the corpse for 24 hours and longed to take the plunge to the afterlife with him.

Makes pond life look pretty dull. But, clearly, in some way that refuses to be pinned down, 'it's not over until the fat toads sing'.

Recently, Fr. C submitted my blog for a literacy test. Came up 'junior high' level. OK. I can take that, I guess. My propensity for making up words and writing incomplete sentences and often disrespecting the English language and its rules (though I was fastidious when young) are most likely to blame. However, Richard Wagner's life-tale is certain to ensure a solid PG rating.

Interesting quote about Wagner: During rehearsals for Tristan, Wagner's friend August Roeckel recalled: "If a difficult passage went particularly well, he would spring up, embrace or kiss the singer warmly, or out of pure joy stand on his head on the sofa, creep under the piano, jump up onto it, run into the garden and scramble joyously up a tree."

Click on the picture of the scary frog above and a National Geographic page comes up with lots of interesting bullfrog info. You can even listen to their 'music'.