The Bullfrog Bell Choir

Sunset in the North Woods is like having season tickets in the front row to the gentlest, most beautiful production around! Almost every evening, the Sunset Show starts, well, at sunset. If you want to see whether there’s a show on any given night, just look to see if the lights are on. (The rain needs a chance to clean up the theater!) No schedule, no email notices, just look toward the west and check the sky.

On this night, there was enough of a breeze, a day of just the right weather, to keep the mosquitoes at bay. (Sometimes, one must make extra preparations for the optimum experience!) Tonight I just settled on the pier to enjoy the show. It is always enhanced by the lake, its reflections and its surroundings. That crew really knows how to set the stage!

My eyes and ears perked up as the sun was dipping low, the light dimming to the perfect pastel pink-blue. I was ready for the opening number. “Ladies and gentlemen, critters great and small, we present The Bullfrog Bell Choir, for your listening enjoyment,” an announcer should say.

Each frog had its own note, one single croak. Each was slightly different, like notes on a scale, and interestingly, it sounded to me like the lowest, deepest tones were to the left along the shore, with middle tones in the center, and higher tones to the right. As with a human bell choir, each individual gets a note (humans 2, for 2 hands; bullfrogs one, for one voice. This may be obvious, but it always amazes me how the humans holding the bells play in perfect sequence as one instrument to bring forth their songs.

The bullfrog choir, similarly, played in their exquisite sequence: Low, middle, high; middle, high, low… Sometimes 2 or 3 formed a chord, sometimes they sang a fun froggy arpeggio. Often, an emphatic bass note interjected.

One nature-related issue—they were so far into the grass that I couldn’t see them! I’m sure it was planned—I needed to enjoy the music with my ears, while I watched the sunset with my eyes. (No doubt, Nature required this for bullfrog safety as well.) But I was SO curious!

I wonder if the sun, so low in the sky, was their spotlight? Do you suppose they wore bowties? And from whom did they each get their individual sounds, as well as their cues to sing together, each at their own time and in order? And for whom did they sing? Me? Wow!

I wonder…maybe, ultimately, we each have a single note to play in the choir of life in our communities. We don’t have to sing all the notes or know all the songs. Maybe we just need to sing our note when it’s our turn. Maybe that is enough.

So thankful to the Creator-Producer of the evening shows; for nature-music. For making me a part of this wonder!