Outside the Oysterville Store

     I doubt very much if the tree frog I saw just outside the Oysterville Store the other day was going a-courtin’ like Mr. Froggie of the old folk song.  Wrong time of year.  At first I thought he was headed right for the post office which is where I was going, too.  I high-tailed it back to my car to grab my camera and in the thirty seconds it took me, he had turned around and was heading the other way toward the entrance to the store.  Grocery shopping?
     Even more interesting than where he was going was what he was wearing.  Unlike his cousins who can still be seen hiding amongst the remnants of my garden, he was not a vivid emerald green.  His coat was a rich reddish brown, exactly the color of the building that houses the Oysterville Store and Post Office.  I knew that tree frogs had camo gear, but I had no idea it was so effective.
     He posed prettily for me and seemed in no hurry to be on his way.  Finally, I left to get my mail and when I returned a few minutes later, he had disappeared.  Thinking about him put me in mind of one of my favorite frog poems: 

                        What a wonderful bird the frog are –
                        When he stand, he sit almost
                        When he hop, he fly almost.
                        He ain’t got no sense hardly;
                        He ain’t got no tail hardly either.
                        When he sit, he sit on what he ain’t got almost.
                                                                        –Anonymous

     I do wish Mr. Anonymous were around to write another verse – one about the tree frog’s coat of many colors.