All the many Quaaksis

Quaaks is a little story that Hermann Löns wrote about a pond frog. Well, I’m not Löns, unfortunately or fortunately not. Unfortunately not, because then I would be able to write stories much better and write a lot more stories like that – fortunately not, because then I would also have his troubled blood, and that caused him a lot of trouble.

My Quaak story begins with my son. Sons don’t have to be like their fathers, even if fathers would like to. Sons should be able to be who they want to be. My son – certain parallels emerge – has a fondness for animals, namely all cold-blooded animals, reptiles and also frogs. He was six years old when he brought me the first frog corpse from a shallow meadow pond that is right behind our settlement. A feeling for the animals’ vital needs meant that he did not put the spawn into a narrow glass tank, where the tadpoles starve and the young frogs drown, but instead dumped it into our garden pond. Sometimes forgotten, now and then rediscovered with amazement, the tadpoles developed into small frogs. The only care I had to take care of was to keep an eye on the tiny baby frogs when I was mowing the lawn so as not to cut them up.

But then I hardly saw anything of them anymore, and my son soon forgot about them. Sometimes, but rarely, I encountered a frog while weeding between moist masses of shrubs, the next year about five centimeters long, the next year, even more rarely, slightly larger, long-legged, thin-bodied frogs.

But the turning point came in the fourth year. At the end of March there were around fifteen adult frogs in my overgrown pond. It was the first milder day of the year, accompanied by haze and drizzle. The ten or so males growled quietly and restlessly, while the females sat sluggishly and waiting. Every now and then one of the males would crawl onto the back of a female, only to be pushed aside by another. The following mild sunny day there was a lot of life in the pond. But I didn’t have much time and didn’t have the eye for it yet. So everything went unnoticed, even by my son. His interest had now turned to snakes. Only the six spawning clumps in the sunniest corner of the pond were admired later, but also more on the edge. Soon spring really arrived, and the frog story faded behind the blossoms and the work in the garden. Until the lawn mowing brought attention to it again in late summer. This time it was swarming with frog children.

Another four years passed. There were fewer and fewer frogs. Recently there are only less than half a dozen left. But then it became criminal. But I have to go further with my story.

There is an asphalt road in front of our property. Not broad. A small side street like the ones that lead through suburban settlements everywhere. But behind it on the other side lies a beautiful wetland. Moor, pond, quarry forest, heath, swamp: a paradise for many animals. It was another beautiful early spring day, hazy, damp and mild. But above all, it’s bursting with new life. The shock was even greater when I and my now 15-year-old son found three dead frogs on the narrow but busy road, flattened and horribly mauled. You could see it cruelly clearly in the streetlights, two males and a female. The oozing spawn from one of the frogs showed us all too clearly. We were paralyzed with pity and anger. But then we were shaken out of our torpor. My son discovered him first. With his sharp animal explorer eyes, he sees everything before I start looking.

At the edge of the road a frog was just about to cross the road, clumsily, with unspeakable effort, hopping only a few centimeters wide, usually in a dragging toad-like gait. A common frog. A female. My son expertly determined the size and shape of the animal. Before our astonishment subsided, the sound of a car approached. The headlights turned onto our street. The frog, still on the side of the road, cast a small shadow, looking like a large, withered leaf. He just took a break and escaped with his life. But he was only twenty centimeters on the road and still had a good three meters in front of him, and car after car came, all the fathers and mothers returning home from work. My son reacted directly and without hesitation. It was such a moment, probably the first, where I as a father was able to see with pride, with a lot of pride and love, a responsible and resolute adult in my son. He grabbed the frog, firmly but carefully, very frog-friendly, just as he can grab lizards and snakes in an animal-friendly manner and without harming the individual, carried it across the street and put it over the fence into our garden. Where else? The frog’s walking direction was clear, and by now we understood. That evening we put about forty more frogs in our garden, mostly found with a flashlight in the leaves of the forest strip on the side of the road. They crossed the road for almost 150 meters. Unfortunately, we only found out about this after a run-over male grass frog was found on the corner where the car in question turned.

At ten o’clock nothing came. I went to the pond again with the lamp. It splashed and growled there. There was a lot of life there. In the light of the flashlight, the pairs of eyes of those who had arrived happily peered out everywhere like telescopes. And there were various rustling noises around the pond. A number of people were still on the move, but were now safe on this side of the road.

A few more stragglers arrived on the following two evenings. Unfortunately, there were also a few people who were run over, but that was limited and probably unavoidable.

It wasn’t until April 10th, almost a fortnight later, that they all went to the wedding, which was worthy of making a film with sound about it. However, that was my wife’s concern. I and my son, who is now grown up, have to report that every time in March, when the first mild, damp evenings come, we, like me, run to the street, full of restlessness and armed with a powerful flashlight, so that we can have our annual dinner in time to begin the frog-across-the-road carry operation.

Last year, however, a big problem arose: vacation. A garden fan likes to take a vacation when there isn’t much going on in the garden. Since the employer offered no other time than the spring break, which is still practically winter in Hamburg, the vacation collided with the frog migration. The first mild days of the year didn’t want to come, and the holiday date was getting closer and closer. What should we do? There was only one thing left: the daughter and son-in-law, who fortunately weren’t on vacation, had to step in and live with us for the time in order to be able to save the frogs. With the daughter it’s not so much of a problem. She is used to a lot from her father and brother. But the son-in-law! He, captain on a long voyage, constantly surrounded by the cleanest water, which even a fingerprint on the radar screen and even more a piece of lint on the coffee cup can upset, he should take the cold, soaking wet, crawling-smooth frogs in his carefully clean hands and hold and carry them there for several seconds. How would that go?

At first he stood perplexed in the darkness before the first frog that appeared in the beam of his flashlight. But he wasn’t allowed to think about it for long. Car after car came. Something had to be done! With his fingers spread, he tried to encourage the cold-exhausted frog to move. It did not help. The frog didn’t move or ruffle. He had used up all his energy and had to mobilize new reserves in the coming minutes. All the pushing didn’t help at all. There was a brief period of perplexity. But suddenly our cleanliness fanatic felt a noticeable jolt. He grabbed the frog, at first with contempt for death, and carried it into the garden, and then many others. Of course, afterwards, when everything was over, he washed his hands very thoroughly, alone in the bathroom, very, very thoroughly, but that only counts marginally. What matters is what he decided to do.

How much a good idea helps to overcome many hurdles. In any case, we were able to enjoy our vacation carefree in the sunny south.

Most of my common frogs, and there are quite splendid fellows, most of them live in the swamp and forest on the other side of the road in the summer. And they overwinter there too. They only come to my pond to get married, driven by a force that is difficult to understand and that always makes them return to the corpse where they went to the shore as little frogs. Yes, that’s really difficult to understand, because on the way to our garden pond they have to hop through a swamp measuring several hundred square meters with ideal spawning grounds. Well, you don’t have to understand everything.

It is enough if we are surprised and happy. And so I’m happy that some frogs stay in my garden over the summer. And there is always one at the small spring pond on my terrace, from where a narrow stream runs into the garden. There he sits on warm September evenings and practices his delicate growling courtship song for the coming spring in order to properly welcome the many wedding guests, provided that we carry them safely across the street, as we do every year.