Gigging

 Dear Andrew,

          Guess who went gigging!

          “What’s gigging mean?” you ask.

          Gigging means to catch small fish or frogs with something that has a lot of little prongs on it. In this case, that would be claws at the end of Tiger’s foot!

          Tiger caught another frog!

          The frog wasn’t moving.

          Was he dead?

          I picked him up and he didn’t move. I watched to see if I could see him breathe. I couldn’t. I turned him over to see if I could detect a heartbeat. He flopped like a wet noodle and I couldn’t see any heartbeat either. But that leads me to another question. Can you see a frog’s heartbeat? I don’t know.

Even though he wasn’t moving, I thought there might be a chance he was still alive. Once, a long time ago, I found a frog I thought was dead. I tossed him in the pond and he took off! He wasn’t dead!

This time, I didn’t throw him in the pond. This time, I set him down by the edge of the pond where the water isn’t very deep. As soon as the water touched him, he jumped out of my hand.

He wasn’t dead either, the faker.

Who knew frogs played possum?

I was out looking for flowers to take pictures of and took this picture of an Autumn Olive bush. When I saw the picture on my computer — boy was I surprised to see a spider! I didn’t know he was there! But I bet he knew I was. Spiders can see us.

“How do you know, Mimi?” you ask.

          I know because sometimes, when I’m moving around a spider trying to get a better angle for a picture, he’ll move around so he faces me. Like this guy did. He just got himself something to eat and no way was he going to let me take it away from him. Little did he know that I don’t eat bugs. Not on purpose anyway.

          Did you ever eat a bug?

We saw all these old cars and trucks lined up in a parking lot. I know you have a lot of old cars and trucks where you live but we don’t see them as much here.

This is what we see a lot of here.

They’re putting in a pipeline. We live on a rich deposit of Marcelles Shale and what can be found in Marcelles Shale? Natural gas, that’s what.

Andrew, I sure do miss you!

         And I love you to infinity and beyond!