#The dance of the frogs by loren eiseley free#

He kowtows to the Saudi prince, defending him against the UN charges that he is responsible for the gruesome death of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. He jokes about interfering in our elections and getting rid of journalists with Vladimir Putin, a man who heads a regime known to be responsible for the deaths and disappearances of journalists as well as overt cyber warfare– an actual act of war– on our election system.

#The dance of the frogs by loren eiseley free#

Our representative, the president*, has forsaken our normal role as the leader of free democracy in the world since WW II and taken a more subservient role to the autocrats and dictators he encounters. When I come across a large mature toad now, I have a lot of respect for it, knowing how much it has endured to get to this place.Īctually, on another subject, the term toady has been in the news lately as the G20 Summit is taking place in Tokyo. But I appreciate their journey, their will to survive and the benefits of the natural pest control they provide by eating so many insects. I guess I could just look straight ahead and let the chips(or toads in this case) fall where they may.

The short walk through the woods becomes a halting slow slog. As I begin to lower my foot, the ground beneath it suddenly comes alive with a bunch of these guys bouncing in all directions. Walking to the studio starts to feel like I am walking through a minefield. Going up and down our driveway becomes a long slow journey this time of the year as we creep along in our vehicles, hoping to give the little guys a chance to avoid the crush our tires. Plus, these tiny toads have to simply survive crossing the driveway. There are spots where I can see several crows on the ground along our driveway next to the pond for most of the day, along with our resident flock of wild turkeys. They are the target of a host of predators who see them as being shrimp in nature’s all you can eat buffet. On the flipside, it makes you appreciate what these toads have to endure to wind up living under a fallen tree in the woods. There’s something joyful in the whole thing.

It’s really something to see, this frantic drive to survive come to life in the form of these little hopping creatures. I often wonder how they know when to finally stop to make a new home. All racing blindly to some unseen destination. These little guys, maybe about 1/4″ in size, are suddenly everywhere, thousands and thousands of them. Every year around this time, a new generation of toads emerges from our pond and begins a migration with an instinctual drive that drives in a radiating arc from the pond. I am, of course, talking about the annual appearance of multitudes of tiny toads around our property.