He’s been AWOL for six days this time, our tiny tree frog who lives on the back deck among the house plants. He’s barely over an inch long and made his initial appearance over the winter in the house.
He’d been living on a plant and when we brought the plants indoors for the winter, the frogs who live in the plants sometimes come in as well.
Being worried that our dogs would eat him, I moved him out to the garage where many of our deck plants overwinter. We already had two tree frogs overwintering in the garage, and he’d be the third.
The little tree frog adopted an agave plant for the winter, and I gave him a dish of water at the base of the plant, keeping it replenished with rain water throughout the winter.
Every day I visited him in the garage, and talked to him, though I never touched him after moving him. I was afraid of spooking him as I’d spooked a green tree frog who promptly disappeared, never to be seen again. I figure the green frog made his escape on one of those days where we leave the garage door open.
The gray tree frog, however, remained on the agave all winter. When we moved the plants outdoors in the spring, he started disappearing. First for a few hours, then for a day, then longer. Every time he disappeared, I worried like crazy. He was so tiny and our world is full of big dangers, HUGE predatory birds, snakes, and even our dogs. So when he disappeared for six days, it was all doom and gloom. I just knew I’d never see him again.
The first thing I do before even having coffee is go check the plants on the deck, searching for him, and this morning there was no sign. But by lunchtime, he had appeared. I chattered up a storm letting him know how happy I was to see him!
