Frogstream - The Best Play

When my three siblings and I were children in the Hudson Valley of NY, we had a drainage ditch by our house which turned out to be the best water play of our lives. And it was populated by an ever changing parade of frogs, all of which we caught multiple times, named, and gently released. We created additional pools, moving slices of the rich clay, often topped with grass and wild flowers, to make new dams and bridges, all to improve the environment for frogs. The county ultimately “fixed” the poorly draining ditch with a front end loader, leaving us bereft and angry for weeks, but while it lasted, it was our little paradise. Every day after breakfast, in the summer, or after school, we would run over to the Frogstream to see who had arrived, and to check on the frogs we had named previously. Greeny 1 and Greeny 2, Goldie (who lived in the deeper pool at the top of the bank, fed by the spring that filled the whole thing), and dozens more I can’t remember. Green head frogs, chorus frogs, leopard frogs, bull frogs, pickerel frogs… I mostly recall how it felt to run the length of our property to reach the Frogstream, ever step driven by anticipation, and how we loved to be there, waiting for frogs to surface after a dive and hide, holding them and looking at them when they would settle down and enjoy the warmth of our hands, and arguing about who got to name the new ones.