I am not a fan of frogs particularly. Nor do they give me the woobies. Let’s just admit it: This little fellow is quite adorable.

You never know what you are going to find around here. Could be a tiny frog like this, no wider than a finger, no bigger than a grape. (I am assuming frog, though it could be a toad – we are a ways from the creek.)

Could be a different (I think) tiny frog that somehow got itself up onto the front door handle(!), which is at, well, front-door-handle-height (!). How did it do that!!??

Could be (occasionally is) a very large (I say monstrous) spider – which I do not take pictures of because they DO give me the woobies. (I’m sure I couldn’t stand to even have a photo of one in my media library!) The most recent near-death experience came last week when I took the broom from its home next to the tall freestanding cabinet in the back corner of my house (where brooms live when you don’t have a broom closet).

All I wanted to do was sweep the porch! Not have my blood pressure skyrocket! Thank God it didn’t jump off before I got it outside. In fact, that spider was so comfortable on the broom, it didn’t move a muscle (and trust me I was watching it carefully) until I smacked the broom against the deck. I watched it could scurry away so I know it’s not inside any more….

Yeah, let’s find something less cringy!!

Could be you find a massive broken branch and take some time to look at the remaining tree, seen here as best as I can photograph it from below. The red arrow shows where the massive branch broke from, which is my way of demonstrating that it was indeed a branch, a mighty big branch. The rest of the tree is leaning toward the driveway – not badly, and it does not appear diseased or weak – still I am undecided how to proceed. Y’all know how much a crane costs. Right?

Yeah, let’s find something less expensive!!

Could be you find Coco chewing a stick in the garden. Nobody gave her the stick. Recently she seems to have decided she’s a real dog. Or that she wants to prove her doghood somehow. Or that Oh! Hey! It feels really good when I chew on this hard thing that tastes like nothing! I’m sure you can imagine how ferociously she went at this doggie pleasure. She put all of her sixteen pounds into it!

More commonly you find her enjoying sun or shade, also known as lazing around with nothing better to do. Somehow the red shirt she is laying on got from the sunny spot to the shady spot. I suppose that means someone moved it to accommodate the dog who, I tell you truly, does not rule the roost, but we would not want her to be too hot or too cold, right? I don’t know who could have moved that shirt…

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Could be you find a metal bowl in the microwave. What!? No one in their right mind puts a metal bowl in the microwave! Yeah, that’s what happens when you are trying to do too many things at once and perhaps are too tired. Yes, I even turned it on and let the butter soften for 30 seconds – on low power, okay, which is probably the only reason I didn’t have an explosion. It was when I opened the microwave to get the butter out and continue making the cake that I discovered the bowl in there.

Could be you find no silkie eggs! A few days before discovering the reason for this I had wondered why the silkies weren’t laying. It’s warm, they have lots of daylight, lots of food – including lots of leftovers – and water. There was no good reason for the lack of eggs in the normal place where they lay. But it was the weekend and a gigantic branch was down and there were beets and squash to plant. I’ll figure that out another day.

Yeah, another day. Monday I looked through the side door of the coop to the left hand corner where the silkies usually lay and there were two eggs. Good!!

My eye caught the brooder, also lazing around with nothing better to do, who hogs the space where laying was intended to take place. Oh, and the other chicken, the perky one to the right…

… just getting up from her turn adding to the pile of fourteen stashed eggs off in the right-hand corner of the coop. I realize there are only two corners, a right-hand and a left-hand. But they have not laid in the right-hand before so why would I look there? Okay, so silkies are laying after all.

It’s just a little house I have in the woods. Some chickens. A garden. A cottage. Who would imagine what might be here to find…

I continue to read to Evelyn, who is 101. I bring Coco every time because Evelyn loves her; she introduces her to anyone who comes in while we are reading. “See my pet?!” Coco lounges between us on the little couch while we read, and Evelyn strokes that soft black fur almost continually. I expect she finds it comforting and luxurious. Evelyn cannot see; she has been blind for the past nine years. I don’t know what I would find if I could not see. Today I thank God for the gift of sight.