Consulting the oracle

Take a close look at the photo above.  You're looking at the wall under our south-facing terrace, whose built-in planter box is punctuated by 3 drainpipes which show in the face of the wall.  Do you see that glint of brilliant emerald green in the pipe?  It's a frog.  Not just any frog, but our frog.

For a few years now, we've been graced every spring with the presence of a frog in our lavoir (laundry fountain and water tank) in Provence.  But over the winter the lavoir had sprung a leak, and it now had only about a foot of water in it.  (We're waiting for an estimate for its repair.)  As spring approached, I was wondering what our frog would think of this new shallower lavoir.  Would he spurn us for deeper waters?  Or would it be to his liking?

On Saturday, I was working furiously in the potager when I heard the distinctive croak of "our" frog.    It's really more a bawling or a bellow than it is a croak.  "Hrrraaaaaaaah!"  The "a" has a 'short a' sound in our frog's language.  There was only one frog pronouncement that afternoon, and I looked up, startled, because it sounded louder than usual.  I even walked over to the lavoir to see if I could spot our frog.  But I saw no sign of him.  Nevertheless, I was overjoyed to know of his presence.  Hearing frogsong always makes me curiously happy, maybe because I grew up on a pond.  Hundreds of frogs inhabited its boggy margins, and their mating chorus always meant that warmer days had arrived.  Now, even the song of a single frog can make joy well up in my heart!  But no more word from our frog that evening, usually the preferred singing hour of frogs.

After two consecutive extremely rainy winters and springs, this year in Provence has offered no froggy weather whatsoever..  Gardeners always wish for rain in moderate amounts and at convenient times, but in Provence, we're especially subject to anguish over droughts.  We count on plenty of cool-season rainfall to build up sufficient water reserves to get us through the ordinarily nearly rainless summer.  I'd been watching the weather in the small city nearest our Provence house all the preceding week on my IPhone.  It had showed, to my joy, several rainy days.  But when we arrived at the house, it was obvious that most if not all of the rain had skipped us. My heart sank. Probably fewer frogs this year, I thought sadly.

On Sunday afternoon, our friend Marie-Noelle stopped by.  We were sitting on the terrace having homemade rose geranium syrup and iced soda when...."HRRRRAAAAAAAAH!" It was unbelievably loud.  "That's our frog!"  I beamed.  "But where is he?  He sounds so close!"

"He's right here!" answered Marie-Noelle, gesturing at the drainage pipe in the middle of the terrace.  "Oh, that's so amazing!" I burbled idiotically. "How did he get in there and I hope he can get out!"  "He probably just climbed straight up the wall on his little suction-cup feet," Marie-Noelle explained sensibly, to reassure me.  As she left a while later, she pointed to the dimming sky.  "I've got a feeling," she announced, "that we may get some rain this evening.  Plus, the frog sang, et alors..."  (And with that drainpipe, the frog's even got a loudspeaker for her predictions," I thought, dourly.  Out of fear of disappointment I am always pessimistic about the possibility of rain in Provence.)

"Oui!" crowed Denis delightedly.  "En plus, elle est montée, la grenouille!!"  (Yes!  Plus, the frog has mounted!)

 "Mounted?  Mounted what?" you're probably wondering at this point.  Okay, let me explain.  According to old-time French weather-prediction lore, if you put a little frog ladder in a frog's water tank, he (or in the French gender, she) will climb the ladder if it's going to rain.  Don't believe me?  I promise it's true!      So, the frog not only sang (which means rain) but she mounted (in this case, from the lavoir to the drainage pipes overlooking the lavoir) which most definitely means rain.  There, from her oracular position, our frog had called for rain.

Marie-Noelle left, and I changed back into my gardening clothes and started planting lavender, directly beneath our Oracle, as it turned out.  I'd been working less than an hour when I looked up.  It seemed to be getting darker, yet it was only a little after 5.  Plus, we'd had our "spring forward" time change that very day, so the daylight would be lasting an hour longer in the evening.  I looked north toward Lure Mountain, from where our weather always comes.  The mountain was crowned with inky clouds.  A few minutes later, I heard a swishing, rushing sound coming from the hills behind the house.  A second later, and the rain was upon us.  Whom should I thank?  Lure Mountain, or our resident Oracle?  I poured myself a glass of rosé and sat on the Oracle's terrace to soak up the spectacle and listen to the fantastic tympany of thunder rolling off the hills.

The following day, my friend Françoise and I were working in the garden and I related this story to her.  She stood up and looked toward the terrace.  "Mais elle est là, ta grenouille!" she exclaimed.  She's there, your frog!  Don't you see her? 

I didn't.  "Where?  How can you see her?"  I was squinting, trying to see a frog from 50 meters away through strong and only partially effective contact lenses..

"My eyes are better than yours!  Right there, in the right-hand drainpipe.  She's green!"  And that's when I took the photo of the Oracle--just a green glint shining in the darkness...

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