On Frog Pond

Dead giant tadpoles, at least 3 inches long, were everywhere in the water. They were strange looking, with frog arms and legs, and a long whip tail. If they matured, they would have been bullfrogs.

But their amphibian presence was seen and heard through out the lake. You see them on land and sitting half submerged in water. At night, you hear them. Oh you hear them.

The first night, there was a cat fight of sorts between the frogs, loons, and ducks. There was loud, confrontational squawking, screeching, hooting, ribbiting, fluttering, and splashing. After that, the frogs settled into a rhythmic lull, a constant plucking and tuning of the cello. There must've been three frogs vibrating their vocal cords on our site, producing that single note - rrrib - over and over again. Across the lake, other frogs were busier tuning their strings, testing and retesting the same series of notes like a bow drawn across a cello.

Occasional, a loon added his vocal shriek, an owl hooted his percussion beat, and lake creatures offered a splashing of water. So it was to these sounds that I fell asleep at night.

During the day though, it was different. The next day, we waited for two others to join us. Two of us took the canoe out to find a hiking trail. We didn't find it. But we picked up firewood wherever we stopped. That little paddle that felt like an hour long actually took three hours. Time gets lost on the water.

Our friends never arrived that Friday. We speculated on what happened to them. They were to provide two days of food. If they didn't show at all, would we leave the park early, or could we ration and stay till Monday? To our horror, we realized we had enough food for seven days for the three of us. Part of me regretted our friends weren't there to enjoy the beauty of the lake, part of me wished they wouldn't come so we could truly try to survive on seven days of food in five.

On Saturday afternoon, our friends found us. This is their story. At 5 am Friday, Jan phoned Lia and said, I forgot the eggs, do you have eggs?

Lia said, Huh? Who is this?

- I am on the highway now, coming to pick you up. We agreed we'd leave at 5 am.

- No, we don't leave for another two weeks.

- No, we leave today.

- Oh my god.

So Jan turned her car around and went home. That night, she had dinner with her kids and ex-husband. Lia scrambled to rearrange her weekend. She had booked appointments for that Friday and had to keep them. But she cancelled her appointments for the Monday, called a friend to take her other to the airport for Sunday, then packed what she could to join us in the wild.

They left Saturday morning at 5 am, drove four hours to the park (that's fast driving without stopping), got into the lake by 10 am, and found us by 2 pm. Lia couldn't arrange for a dog sitter so brought her little dog, Kuku. After they unloaded their canoe, the first thing Lia said was, Uh oh, Kuku caught a frog.