And Then There Were More ... Frogs, That Is.

The scenario of frogs at our new location continued on when the girls discovered that rocks next to their sandbox was home to a bunch of adult frogs. It didn't take them long to figure out that by spraying the rocks with a stream of water from the hose the frogs would hop out of their safe seclusion right into the hands of happy waiting playmates. The frogs soon had names and elaborate tunnels and "buildings" built in the sandbox for their "enjoyment". The kids spent hours playing with their frog friends in that sandbox. When the play was over for the day the frogs were gently returned to their home in the rocks. While I'm on the subject of frogs, I'll fast forward to the next spring when we realized what a real plague they would become. We woke up one morning to discover thousands ... yes, I truly mean thousands, of tiny little frogs covering the street as far as you could see, and just as many hopping all over the grass in the front yard. This went on for about a week. You couldn't drive down the street without running over hundreds of frogs, and when you tried to mow your grass, you had automatic fresh red fertilizer for your lawn. It was HORRIBLE! After that first year frogs just became a part of living in Novato and was no big deal ... especially since they became the kids' favorite playmates.

The children also enjoyed opening up big cardboard boxes and using them to slide down the hill behind our house. We had easy access to that hill because we had a gate in the backyard fence. The boxes slid easily over the weeds on the hill especially in the fall when they would dry up and become even more slippery. All the kids in the neighborhood would join in the fun.

Another playmate was added to the family when we bought a Collie puppy for the children. I have always loved Collies, I guess a carryover from my childhood when Lassie was a favorite movie star. For those too young to know about Lassie, she was a Collie dog who was the hero that always saved the day. When we saw a sign in the neighbor's yard, "Collie Puppies For Sale", we just had to go take a look. It happened that the dogs were all pedigreed with papers so that made them very expensive. We just couldn't put that much money into a dog, But when the owners saw how disappointed the children were they told us that one of the pups had "droopy" ears instead of the straight "perky" ones that tipped over at the top. They told us that even though this defect could possibly be corrected by taping round rods in the ear to hold them up as the ear grew, it made this puppy less valuable than the others. They said we could have the dog for "$50.00, a bargain we quickly accepted.

In order to register a dog with with the AKC it had to have three names. Since we had the pedigree papers for our puppy we decided to go ahead and register him, even though we knew he would never be used as a show dog or for breeding. He was just to be the family pet. We names him Prince Cooper of Lynwood ... "Prince" because that was the name we planned to call

him, "Cooper" because that was the last name of an astronaut who that year was the first to circle the earth in a spaceship ..., and "Lynwood" because that was the name of the tract that we lived in.

Once through that puppy stage, Prince became a beloved member of our family for about thirteen years. He loved and protected the children, and was their constant companion and playmate. They could sit on him, tease him while he was sleeping, take toys away from him and he never even growled his displeasure. When the twins were old enough to play outside he would walk along side of them and not let them into the street. He was big enough to just push them away from the road. Once he even chased a motorcycle that had frequently been racing down our residential street, scaring the children (he was not a car chaser) and tried to bite the rider. The rider kicked at him and swerved his cycle so that it would hit him. His hip was injured which resulted in his having arthritis there as he aged. He was so lonely when the kids were gone for more than a day that once when we returned home we found that he had opened an unlocked sliding glass door, gone to Jeanie's room, removed a stuffed cat that was made of real rabbit fur, and took it outside with him. When we returned home we found it between his front paws with his head resting on it. He was one special dog, even if he once he opened that same sliding glass door and ate an entire gingerbread house that we had just purchased for Christmas. He didn't even get sick! That's what we get for leaving that door unlocked once we knew he could open it with his paw.

There were more special lessons we learned during that four years we lived in Novato. We made some of the most long-lasting friends there and experienced one of the first of several real miracles in our life. More to come.