Frog sick

Our days on the farm have been simple. Wake up is around eight-thirty or nine in the morning. Often by Nixon stomping into our room. Her preferred wake-up call is a medium firm tap on the face with her pointer finger. A great way to be risen from a dead sleep. After preparing whatever meal the kids demand of us, we head to off to our safe zones to get in a workout. I head to the garage and April heads to the upstairs game room. The girls settle in the office for a morning movie or to work on Hendrix’s most recent distance learning material. The school has been sending a packet every week. We print one for Hendrix and one for Nixon. Hendrix is very diligent about her schoolwork, so she enjoys this time. Nixon draws obscure shapes on the printed assignment, and then flaunts it with pride. It’s a scrambled mess of nonsense, but she’s convinced it’s an academic marvel. Her confidence is delusional but refreshing.

Me and April have been intermittent fasting, so we eat lunch around twelve-thirty. I always finish my work-out before her. As soon as I finish, I prepare our meal, with the goal of having the food ready by the time she’s done. The girls have finished their work by this time. They like to sit at the counter while I cook to hound me for snacks. I’m convinced they have a tapeworm, because they eat every twenty minutes. It’s exhausting.

I usually barricade myself in the office after lunch to try to get a little work done. I watch videos from the master-class Emily sent me, hammer out construction proposals, or fit in some reading time. The living room, dining room and kitchen are one big open space in this house. The office is a couple steps down the hallway, and separated by two large, hollow core French doors. They provide a slight sound barrier, but you can hear everything. April has a number of things that occupy her during this time. Often it involves slipping into a deep coma on any number of comfortable roosts throughout the house. With both of us preoccupied, the girls use the house as a large playroom.

Everyone has been content with our routine. It’s surprising. We don’t accomplish much during the day, yet each day seems to bring an odd fulfillment by the time you hit the pillow. From time to time angst creeps in, but it is fleeting. However, I could tell that the angst was alive and well yesterday with the girls. Apparently, April had a bit too much coffee, because after lunch she decided to vacuum the whole first level of the house. I escaped to the office, and the girls proceeded to play.

I sat on the old couch in the office with my laptop. It’s an old textured canvas loveseat, with brass pins lining the arm and headrest. The dark brown and maroon print looks like it was made in the nineteen-seventies. It fits perfectly with the dark, thick grained wood lining the office. I didn’t settle into my thoughts for five minutes when I heard April scold the girls for making a huge mess in their bedroom. That’s not uncommon, so I didn’t think much of it. I regained focus and dove back into my laptop. Five-minutes later I heard another altercation. April just discovered a toy the girls destroyed and was giving them the run-down. I could feel the tension building, but I sunk back into my work. Five more minutes passed, and through the door another burst of thick, tense energy hit me. I don’t recall what the girls did, but it was clear that the chaos was building, gaining steam by the minute. I could also tell by the sound of Aprils voice that it was time for me to step in to help. Her and the kids were like two weather-fronts headed directly at each other. A perfect shit-storm was brewing.

I busted out of the office and didn’t ask questions. It’s not often, but sometimes you just know what to do. I knew April needed to be rescued. I yelled to the girls to stop what they were doing, get dressed and meet me in the garage. There’s a pig-pen a few minutes walk from the house, and we were going to visit them. They were excited at the prospect of feeding them apples, so they quickly obliged. I walked downs the short stairway leading to the garage, and impatiently waited for them. Hendrix came out first. She was dressed in jean shorts, a yellow floral printed dress and a wool zip-up hoodie, zipped to the top. She topped off the outfit with her favorite pink soled, mid-rise rain boots. Zero fashion, pure function. Nixon lagged behind. I opened the door to the house and yelled for her. She was crippled by the task of picking out the correct outfit in such short order and was crying because she couldn’t find the right socks. Me rushing her only sent her deeper into a downward spiral.

After walking back upstairs, helping Nixon pick out the correct dress, and rummaging through the dirty laundry for two-day old socks (the only ones that she would agree on). We were nearly on our way. The final obstacle was waiting for Nixon to put on her oversized, glossy pink Doc Martens. Putting them on, taking them off, on, off, adjust socks, on, off and finally back on. Our journey had begun.

We headed out of the automatic steel gate that separates the dirt fire-road from the asphalt driveway leading to our house. The wind was mild but consistent, with a strong gust every few minutes. Hendrix brought a kite in hopes to capitalize. The path leads to the top of a hill with a three-way fork. Heading to the right leads you on a two-mile hike to the ridge. Either path left circles around an elevated meadow, guarded by one lone oak tree near its center, and ends at the pig-pen. Cows dot the landscape, and today ten to fifteen of them decided to graze directly in our path of travel. It was best not to bother them, so we stopped at the fork in the path to fly our kite.

I held the strings. The girls were in charge of throwing the kite into the air to catch wind and untangling it when it fell to the ground. A few attempts were successful, but ultimately it wasn’t windy enough to bear fruit. Every time the kite ascended the wind would die completely. Hendrix insisted I was doing something wrong. I didn’t argue. I passed her the strings and decided to let her learn aerodynamics the hard way. She spent the next twenty minutes handling them and barking orders to Nixon with no success. Finally, she dropped the kite where she stood and proclaimed, “I think its broken”. My reply, “whatever”. She’s my daughter. She’s cursed with my stubbornness.

With the path to the pigs blocked by a heard of hungry cows, we decided to venture out into the landscape. We followed the fork in the path to the right, heading at a steep incline towards the top of the hill. After hiking around the first large bend we noticed a small pond about fifty yards off of the trail. It was roughly the size of an in-ground jacuzzi and surrounded by Oak trees on all sides. Struck with immediate intrigue, the girls were adamant we explore.

I didn’t know what to expect, but we hiked towards the pond. As we got closer, I could see an old rusty pipe on one end that looks like it was meant to drain water if it reached its level. By all appearance it was a small watering hole for the local livestock. When we got within ten feet of it the ground started to soften, and our boots began to sink in more and more with each step. Hendrix was elated, Nixon not so much. As me and Hendrix got deeper and deeper in thick mud, Nixon decided to venture slightly off course, into a canopy of long hanging oak trees next to the pond. The refuge offered he dry soil. In her opinion, glossy pink Docs and a shimmering, vertical striped pink dress were not meant for such a mess.

Hendrix grabbed a large stick sitting a few yards offshore. It was her height and twice the thickness of a golf club. She playfully dredged the edge of the pond causing ripples each time she inserted the stick into the water. A movement in my periphery caught my attention. I yelled to Hendrix to stop moving, and she paused for a moment. I saw it again, and again. That’s when I realized the pond was crawling with frogs. They were as large as the head of a spoon, and varied in color. Each time she stirred the water, more and more would emerge and hop along the shore. I pointed them out to both girls, with a burst of energy. I remember catching frogs when I was younger, and the same rush of excitement rushed over me.

In standard fashion, Nixon was weary of my discovery. She was twenty feet away, resting on dry land. My excitement over the frogs wasn’t strong enough to draw her in. Hendrix on the other hand, immediately jumped into action. She did one of those joyful piercing screams (which ring my ears) and committed that she was going to catch one. She wanted my help, so she handed me the stick and told me to get the frogs to jump in her direction. I followed orders. One by one I gently coaxed each frog toward her and she bent over to capture them by cupping her hands together. She didn’t realize it, but by this time she was in the water up to the top of her rain-boots. I could it see reaching the top edge and overflowing, soaking her feet with dirty muck water, but she didn’t seem to care. The mission was imminent.

I looked back to check on Nixon and could tell she was getting more interested by the second. Watching us hop around in ankle deep mud, laughing with anxiety every time Hendrix almost captured a frog had become too much. She wanted in on the action. She slowly waded through the mud and met us by the edge of the pond. Hendrix finally caught a frog and was ecstatic. Nixon inspected closely but didn’t want to touch it. Being an accessory was plenty for her. This continued for a few more minutes. Then it happened.

Hendrix was on the trail of a bright green frog that I led toward her from the edge of the pond. We found that the bright green ones are especially agile and can hop a lot further than most. As it ran away from me and my guiding stick, it headed in Nixon’s direction. Nixon was having fun, but still not fond of the frogs getting too close to her. She made a quick movement to run up shore to safety but tripped over a depression in the mud. Her oversized Pink Docs got the best of her. She put out her right hand to brace the fall, and the mud quickly swallowed her up to mid-arm. The lower portion of her shiny pink dress was now covered with a gooey sludge.

Standing up, she didn’t realize what happened. Me and Hendrix froze. Would she laugh this off and continue to be a spectator while we chased amphibians? Unfortunately, we both knew too well what was coming. Upon self-inspection, it became apparent. Her mud filled boots, dirty dress, and an arm caked in with a thick layer of pure brown mush, were too much to bear. Like flipping a switch, her face turned. Her blank stare was followed by an outburst of tears. Not sad tears, angry tears. Me and Hendrix stood at attention. She pierced us with her eyes as she yelled, “I’m all messy. I don’t like mud and I DIDN’T want to get muddy”. Nixon has a wrath that knows no bounds, so I knew not to console her. I simply said, “lets go inside, wash off and take a nice warm bath”. She saw right through my bullshit. She stood in place. By this time more postured, and angry than last, “’I’m all messy. I don’t like mud and I DIDN’T want to get muddy”.

Me and Hendrix were forced to act fast. We both understood this wasn’t going to get resolved without drastic action. Nixon was getting more pissed by the second. Each time she brushed the hair out of her face, it got more covered with mud, which further infuriated her. Hendrix made the first sacrificial offering and allowed Nixon to wipe mud all over her sweater. I followed in suit. Luckily, Nixon was amused by us joining in her discomfort. Her tears slowly subsided. The distraction lasted long enough for us to make our way back to the house. I hosed the girls off in a hot shower, soaped them as best I could to remove all the mud and put them in a steamy bath to melt off the remaining waste.

Nixon this morning. It’s Easter and April laid out a basket full of goodies for them by the fireplace in the living-room. We also have an Egg hunt planned. We had a couple bottles of wine last night and at eleven PM, decided to hide them in the front of the property. Not realizing rain was forecast early today. Nixon has been excited for the days’ events, and so are we. Easter is Aprils favorite holiday. She got out of bed early to show Nixon the basket the Easter Bunny left for her. Nixon looked it over, and after a few seconds and a blank stare, threw -up all over the living room floor. She continued vomiting for the next few hours, every twenty to thirty minutes, like clockwork.

She recovered quickly this afternoon, ate her Easter chocolate, hunted Eggs and ate a full dinner. Her sickness fleeted as fast as it arrived. I guess what I didn’t think about in the frenzy of it all was that the pond wasn’t just a watering hole. It wasn’t just a refuge for a number of multi-colored frogs. And it definitely wasn’t a friendly neighborhood playground. It was a stagnant puddle of marinating animal feces, with no place to escape. What Nixon fell in, wiped all over her face, and all over me and Hendrix wasn’t just slushy, warm dirt. It was slushy, warm dirt mixed with animal shit.

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