Froggy

I know people who jokingly say "froggy" when they mean "foggy". When mist drifts in off the water and it is difficult to see, one person I know will say "it's froggy out". Tonight, it is truly froggy. There's not a wisp of fog to be seen (it's actually a lovely clear night), but there are hundreds (perhaps thousands) of frogs to be heard. They are in Springer's Point and they are singing and calling to one another.

This proximity to nature is one of the (many) things I love about Ocracoke. A few days ago I watched a crab scuttle away from my toes (I could see him easily in the clear, shallow water at the edge of Silver Lake). There are two lovely black ducks that I have enjoyed seeing on the harbor recently. (And of course there are "my ducks", who have now gotten so used to "sharing" the outside cats' food that, if they find the food bowl empty, they stand outside the screened porch and quack until I put some more in it!) On a walk around the village, you might see seagulls, geese, chickens, a rooster or two, and of course plenty of cats.

Of course all this nature poses its challenges, too. At the Civic and Business Association meeting tonight, we had a discussion about issues with the geese who hang around and make an awful mess near the National Park Service docks. Some people aren't thrilled about the fact that parts of the beach are closed to vehicle traffic each year for plover and turtle nesting. But like so many other things in life, it's important to work to find the right balance and to try to get along. Speaking of turtle nests, I learned tonight that the leatherback nest recently laid on Ocracoke was not harmed by the storm earlier this week.

By the way, our recent Nor'Easter visitor now has a name. Andrea is the first named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season (which doesn't officially start for 2 more weeks, but nature isn't interested in man's time tables!) She has continued heading south and will be wreaking her havoc on Florida in the coming days. She's not officially a hurricane; the forecasters are calling her a "subtropical depression".

Enjoy the nature around you. I think I'll sleep with the windows open tonight, so I can drift off to the sound of frogs singing.