No, do not try looking it up in Urban Dictionary, because it is not some hipster metaphor. I got suckered into buying a tiny potted lemon tree this summer, as a result of my extreme envy of my friends in California who so often seem to be maintaining a citrus grove even if their outdoor space consists of only a fire escape.
My lemon tree sat uneventfully on the front porch from July until now, enjoying the sun and being notably free of lemons. About a week ago, I went out the front door to pick up a package and spied this little creature using a lemon leaf as a chaise longue. I thought it was the best excuse so far for having bought the tree, so I took a few pictures and left my friend to relax unmolested. It's not easy being green, you know.
But you know that's not the end of it! Because I had to know: what frog is that?
It turns out that it is the threatened Pine Barrens Treefrog (Hyla andersonii), an animal whose population decline is largely traceable to loss of appropriate habitat. They like more acidic water than many other frogs do, so they are well suited to piney wetlands. They have three areas of habitat in the US: Florida panhandle/Alabama; the Carolinas; and the New Jersey Pine Barrens, shown on the map at left. (They actually were upgraded, or "down-listed", from endangered in 1979 to threatened in this century, after the Pine Barrens got some legal protection.) Also shown on the map, by the small red star with a circle around it, is my current location, which you'll note is unreasonably far from the Pine Barrens. That's quite a long way to hop when you are the length of my fingertip, so I'm thinking there's a plant nursery in the Pine Barrens whose potted plants find their way up here.
Not necessarily citrus trees! Because part 2 of the story is, Sunday I did summer-to-autumn stuff, so I left the lemon tree on the front porch but carried away its companion, a red and white geranium in a blue pot. Yes, yes, it was a Memorial Day purchase and it came with a little American flag stuck in the pot too. I brought the geranium around back, to live out the remaining pre-frost days with others of its kind, and on the way, I plucked out the miniature star-spangled banner. I felt something cool, like a drop of water, land on the back of my hand in the process, but of course it was not a drop of water; it was a Pine Barrens Treefrog.
I nudged the tiny frog back into the geranium, because I thought that, if I lost him in the grass, he'd be toast. I put the geranium where I intended, and then I went in and got a camera and took a few more frog pictures.
Now I am feeling guilty about the frog. Should I have brought him back to the lemon tree? But he was in the geranium! Will he be okay in the back yard, when he was in the front all summer? He'll probably die over the winter -- they're said to live 2-5 years, but they probably do that by burying themselves, and burying yourself in a flowerpot is a lot colder than in the ground. I can't bring him inside, because I have no mosquitoes to feed him, nor do I want to raise mosquitoes for him. And anyway,
Because they are protected in all the states where they occur, it is illegal to possess these frogs in captivity without special permits.
Yeah, I know. Things are what they are. Since I have only one frog, no frog chow, and no body of low-pH water, this frog is at the end of his (or her) genetic road. I'm not driving the frog to south Jersey. But I'm too much of a softy not to feel bad about it.
My fingers give some scale:
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Kitchen Table Kibitzing is a community series for those who wish to share part of the evening around a virtual kitchen table with kossacks who are caring and supportive of one another. So bring your stories, jokes, photos, funny pics, music, and interesting videos, as well as links—including quotations—to diaries, news stories, and books that you think this community would appreciate. Readers may notice that most who post diaries and comments in this series already know one another to some degree, but newcomers should not feel excluded. We welcome guests at our kitchen table, and hope to make some new friends as well.
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