Frog Class

I joined a group of master naturalists at a meeting at Carlos Avery on Wednesday evening. This was our first meeting. We had about 35 people in attendance and the class was about frogs and salamanders. I like frogs. I have a frog pin on my jean jacket and blue frogs decorate my mailbox. My first paying job was selling frogs ($1 per dozen and mostly to my Uncle Joe). I am most familiar with leopard frogs, tree frogs, and wood frogs. So I am sitting in this classroom intently listening about frogs when I hear a sound come in through the open window. Was that a dog? No. A wolf? There are no wolves here near Forest Lake. There is more than one. There is a whole pack of wolves. Or is it dogs? I know dogs, these are no dogs. This sounds like a pack of wolves and they sound like they're right outside the window. Not that I've heard a pack of wolves other than on television or in the movies. I contemplate standing up in a room full of 35 master naturalists to say, "Can't you hear the wolves?!" What if I am wrong? What if they cast me out of the master naturalist group for making such a silly mistake? But this has got to be wolves, right here in Carlos Avery. Finally the teacher says, "I wondered which wolf was yipping?" She explains they keep a pack of wolves there in Carlos Avery. I do not know why. We ask to see the wolves and are told we must make special arrangements first. The wolves calm down and our attention returns to the frogs. We listen to the sounds each of the seven frogs make. Some frogs sound like a Geiger counter, some sound like snoring, some like a wet finger rubbing a balloon. None of them sound as exciting as the wolves.