Well. This frog Dang nearly killed me.
I chased it out. Thought that would be it. I mean, I never had big bullfrogs in the pool. I had turtles. Snakes. Froglings. Sometimes I saved them. But not full-grown bullfrogs.
Ribbit.
One week after we got rid of that French restaurant menu item, Sunday, to be exact, I looked out the back door and saw the frog mug with the eyes over the water level, at the stairs again.
Well, the guy took the liking, methought. I broke out the bucket and the tray and promptly made sure the croaker ended up over the fence in the woods on its way to the pond.
Yesterday, Tuesday it was, I went to check the chlorine before it got too dark.
While checking it, I saw a little dead garden snaky at the bottom, tossed it out, said "ashes to ashes" and decided to check the skimmer, just in case. There was no reason, no recent rain or anything of the sort that results in critters washed in the pool and sucked into skimmers.
I opened the lid.....and I saw the flipper. Whoever that flipper was attached to was obviously alive as it was keeping at the surface.
Well, methought, pulling the basket usually is a sure way to catch the trespasser.
I put my hand to pull out the basket and the frog made a serious dash to escape and got in the pool through the skimmer trap door.
Wow!
I could see it graciously swimming along the bottom, with one of it's sizeable middle fingers on a flipper extended towards me. That made me angry.
I went to fetch the bucket and the tray.
My kids came out, my daughter of 10 and my son of 17.
The froggie started surfacing for air and quickly got trapped in the bucket. Then I put the tray under, pressed the bucket firmly against the tray and started rising from my knees. When I was fully risen, my hands pressing the bucket and the tray played a trick on my balance, and I fell. On the concrete. My head barely missed a brick step going down to the pool. I guess my jiu-jitsu training paid; I broke the fall with my forearm.
My daughter screamed; my son grinned. Then he helped me up.
The frog was back in the pool.
I was hurt.
My wife came out and asked about the commotion, and my son said "The frog kicked dad's Rear".
I went inside and tended to my wounds. Bleeding ankle, and abrasions above my butt, on my elbow and a bit of a jammed wrist.
Then I came back.
The frog realized I was fuming and immediately dove. After a few minutes it realized it had no snorkel and decided to surface up. I went after it. The frog saw me and went across the pool.
I followed.
It tried to surface under the climbing ladder where I could not use the bucket, but I pushed it back with the tray.
Eventually it had to give up and surfaced right where I was waiting. There it was caught.
Then the same thing followed: my son and I jumped in my Jeep and brought it to the pond.
A beer was my reward after all that.
