Editor’s note: This commentary is by Rob Mullen, an artist, expedition canoeist and naturalist who lives in West Bolton. He is the founder and director of the Wilderness River Expedition Art Fellowship (WREAF), now at the Center for Circumpolar Studies.
[D]ead frogs and catfish don’t normally affect me any more than they do most people, but this has been a trying year and I was susceptible to small good omens. In addition to the presidential election, my wife Bonnie and I have been dealing with a trapping controversy since last December (the beaver colony in the pond behind our house was exterminated), there had been illness and loss among family and friends, and each of us had lately developed worrisome health issues. The frog and catfish started it, the chickadee brought it to a head, and the election ended it.
Friday, Oct. 29, I was walking with our dogs to Preston Pond 100 yards away. Skirting the soggy remains of our first snow, I narrowly avoided stepping on a gray, gloppy lump in the gravel that vaguely looked as though it might have once been a frog, albeit a possibly run-over one. Morbidly curious, I stooped to look. Indeed, it was a seemingly dead green frog; however, her fate had apparently been a much more drawn-out tragedy than a tire. She was tucked in a tight, squished crouch. Plunging temperatures had changed rain to snow a few days before, and the crouch was probably an instinctive effort to conserve heat when she gave up trying to reach the safety of the pond where she could bury into the mud. The flattening was no doubt due to being buried in the heavy, wet accumulation which had since melted. She had lost her fight for life only 80 yards from the water. The stoically melancholy pose was a sad and last longshot at survival.
Picking her up, she was cold, discolored, and stiff – rather like a thick mini-Frisbee – and yet. There was a tiny sign that I might be the receiver of her Hail Mary pass to live. Amazingly, I saw a flicker of movement beneath the tightly shut eye membrane – almost like an entreaty, “I’m still in here.”
Without Bernie, to me the presidential race boiled down to Clinton who wanted to keep treading water in a dangerously warming pot versus Trump pretending to lead a jump into the fire (not how Feel the Bern was intended) – with neither thinking of using the water to douse the flames.
Calling the dogs back, with the frigid frog in one hand, I rummaged in the garage for a suitable container. Finding a storage bin, I dumped the contents and set her up in a makeshift terrarium in the kitchen (Bonnie was in Montreal). Within a couple of hours, the “dead” frog was sitting up with her eyes open, a miraculous testament to the tenacity of life. Bonnie was immediately won over when she returned and the frog was allowed to stay on the kitchen counter. It was too cold to release her so I got her some crickets for company.
On Tuesday, Nov. 1, with the frog still convalescing in the warmth of the kitchen, I went to the pond in the morning as usual. There was a thin coat of ice, and the water level, which had risen with the recent rain and snow, was dramatically lower than it had been the day before (no beavers = the dams leak). Gazing out over the quarter mile expanse of the main lake to the north, I was startled by a squishy flopping noise closeby. Out on a newly exposed mudflat, something was exhaustedly struggling in the mire. Picking my way out through the icy ooze, I discovered an 8-inch bullhead. The water level had dropped so rapidly overnight that it had been stranded, obviously for hours and was nearly spent. I pulled its head clear of the mud, broke a hole in the ice and, avoiding the spines, plopped it back into the water. It sat for a bit before starting to swim off but then doubled back and posed. As a wildlife artist, I didn’t have to be told twice. It’s not often that you can rescue a catfish and get photos of it resting beneath the patterned translucence of the first freeze. It finally headed for deeper water and I returned to the house for breakfast.
On Thursday, the weather turned bizarrely mild for November with more mild weather in the forecast, so out to the pond the frog and I went. I sat with her for a long while to make sure she was functional (frogs are very patient). Several newts were out and I saw another green frog hanging by the beaver dam so we were hopeful that she could slip back into her autumn routine. I returned to check on her in the evening. She was still in the same area but seemed OK. I told her that if she didn’t feel up to burrowing in for winter, to just come back to where I released her – I promised to check it every day – and we’d set her up inside until spring. She looked like she understood.
Together, these two little rescues felt good. Moreover, we’d had unusual visits from migrating flocks of buffleheads and common goldeneyes during the same time. Sensing an opportunity, the deeply suppressed mystic in me roused itself to suggest something metaphysical was afoot. I dismissed the notion of course, yet the very next day Bonnie and I both had doctor’s appointments – and we both had good news: relatively easy treatments and full recoveries likely.
Saturday morning, I settled into work early with a coffee while listening to the renewed rain/snow. A few hours in, I noted a “thwunk” that could have been a bird hitting one of the windows. I piled downstairs and outside. Sure enough, strewn in a stunned, disheveled mess among the cold rivulets and puddles was a gasping young chickadee being pelted by the heavy plops of snowy rain. Quickly cupping it within the warmth of my hands, I took it inside. In five minutes it started to life and grabbed my fingers with its feet. Back outside under the overhang, for several minutes the chickadee seemed to consider the wisdom of exchanging the shelter of my hands for cold, wet independence. Then suddenly, with no sign of injury, the youngster exploded into undulating flight, landing in a nearby lilac. When I returned with my camera, it was back to being a chickadee and greeted me with its “dee-dee-dee” alarm call. That made it a hat trick. Was something paranormal actually going on and if so, what might this third sign mean? (Though an artist and sure that there are many unimaginable mysteries in the universe, I’m not much of a New-Age hill-hippie – I have a biology degree and am able with a tractor, chainsaw and rifle). Our health issues seemed in hand and the trapping vote wasn’t likely for at least a month. Could it be the presidential election would be OK? Without Bernie, to me the presidential race boiled down to Clinton who wanted to keep treading water in a dangerously warming pot versus Trump pretending to lead a jump into the fire (not how Feel the Bern was intended) – with neither thinking of using the water to douse the flames. I didn’t see a “good” outcome, but with Clinton, there was a chance to push for necessary change without tossing environmental, economic and social/moral issues to the wind.
As Election Day evening wore on, to have even slightly entertained the idea that the chickadee was possibly an omen was embarrassing (thankfully, only Bonnie knew). Yet since that “Twilight Zone” evening, I’ve mostly shut up and done some thinking. It is doubtful that “signs” like these often (OK, “ever”) spring from any supernatural source. They are true events in the real world but given how nature’s fundamental mechanisms and patterns repeat, intersect and overlap at differing scales in wondrous complexity, maybe they are small manifestations of larger truths: the beauty and wonder of the universe, the tenacity of life, and the value of a long view, empathy and a helping hand. However, what also is clear is the importance of paying attention and acting. Bonnie and I were too young for the Vietnam War and civil rights protests (only just). Bernie, a veteran of both, called for a political revolution. Ironically, it was left to Trump’s voters to start it (for some of the same legitimate reasons). Yet it is up to all of us to vigilantly and actively continue it.
