Froggy murder

Missing a frog? My fault.

I took the girls to the Burwell-Morgan Mill in Millwood today. After volunteering for their Art at the Mill show last spring, I became hooked on this beautiful old building with its inviting stream and strong history to Virginia. Now I go as often as I can so the girls can slip back into time and catch frogs. Well, that's the plan. If I hadn't captured them all and stuck them in a cigar box when I was about five, I'm sure the United States will still be overrun with the fabulous creatures.

Nothing could hold back my crazed enthusiasm for catching hundreds of tiny frogs next to my grandparents' home on the Applegate River in Oregon. I'd fill buckets with them, carry them up to show my grandmother who then waved me off so I wouldn't get a stray frog in whatever she was canning at the moment. I'm sure she assumed I returned them to the river but at five-years-old and only an old cat and a baby brother to play with, frogs were way more interesting.

The frogs were transferred to cigar boxes for safekeeping and so they wouldn't jump all over the house. Then...I'd run off and forget about the box. Weeks later, I'd find the source of the briny smell in my room: dessicated frogs. This wasn't just one time, Internet. I cleaned out the river. I've felt guilty ever since.

Lily and Vyolette built frog houses today in the stream, just in case any happened by. I hadn't the heart to tell them their mother had committed froggy murder years ago.