Frogmarch

Although the average Northwesterner might be inclined to say that the land is visited with various Biblical plagues (tent caterpillars, espresso-bar chains, out-of-town relatives), a close reading of Exodus reveals that in fact there is only one discernable parallell between life in this region and the second chapter of The Good Book, which is the annual migration this time of year of tens of thousands of nickel-sized Pacific Tree Frogs from the ponds in which they hatched to the surrounding forests.

According to the Bible, the frogs of the Second Plague "will come up into your palace and your bedroom and onto your bed, into the houses of your officials and on your people, and into your ovens and kneading troughs." Lacking both a palace and a kneading trough I cannot personally speak to abundance of frogs in those specific locations, but as a government official and a person (I contend it is possible to be both) I can attest to having froglets hop into my hair while I am picking dahlias on a rainy afternoon. Likewise, the tiny creatures are regularly seen bounding erratically across the living room, deftly defying our efforts to capture them by zigzagging with an unpredictability that would be the envy of an NFL running back. My oven has so far remained frog-free, but during most of the month of September we constantly find the froglets sticking to the siding, the greenhouse and the car, and tucked into the petals of nearly every flower in the garden. On wet nights we see hundreds of them hopping across the road, looking like exceptionally large raindrops.

Eventually the frogs settle into the salal and sword fern forest understory, where they spend the winter fattening up on gnats, emitting an occasional chirp and generally lounging around waiting for spring.