FROG AND TOAD

So this week the prompt was ‘Natural Order’, and these are a few pics to go with it at the bottom.

I’m cheating a bit as the story,inspired by the frog pic, was from my book I wrote in 2021.

How I wrote my book

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Frog and Toad

“Fear is nothing; the real thing is courage.”

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“Good morning, Toad,” mumbled Frog with a mouthful of dragonfly. “How are you this morning?” She asked.

Toad shuffled alongside the pond’s murky waters and looked across to where Frog sat on her lily pad, eating.

It was a bright, sunny day, and the sun was already climbing into the crystal blue sky.

“Good morning, Frog,” he croaked. “The pond is especially full today, isn’t it?”

Toad was not particularly good at conversation, but he did know a full pond when he saw one, and this pond was most definitely full.

Frog finished her fly before she replied.

“Indeed it is Mr. Toad,” she said, “the storms have come at just the right time, and the ponds and rivers and waterholes are all wonderfully deep. Are you going for a swim this morning?” She asked. “The water is cool, and the flies are many.”

Frog’s dark eyes protruded from her pale green skin, darted left and right and up and down. Toad nodded in answer to her question, and was just about to slip into the water when Frog’s tongue shot out. In the blink of an eye she was chewing on another blue-green dragonfly that had strayed too close. The dragonfly’s delicate, black wings hung from her lips as she ate heartily.

“That looks delicious,” Toad said, enviously.

He was quite hungry himself, and dragonflies were a favourite of his – if he could manage to catch one.

“It looks like another lovely day,” he said.

“Oh, it does,” said Frog.

What a handsome Toad indeed, she thought to herself.

“Would you like to join me for some breakfast Mr. Toad?” She asked, smiling a wide smile.

“Breakfast?” Toad replied, looking somewhat confused. Breakfast with a frog was quite out of the ordinary for toads. Frogs were frogs, and toads were toads as far as he had been led to believe.

Frog saw the confused look on Toad’s face, and she laughed. “Mr. Toad, we are not so different, you and I. You like the pond, don’t you?”

Toad agreed that he did very much like the pond.

“And you like lily pads, don’t you?” Frog asked.

Toad thought for a moment and agreed that yes, he certainly did like lily pads.

“And what about flies?” Frog asked. “Surely, you like flies, don’t you?”

Toad didn’t need to think about this at all; He thoroughly enjoyed flies. Flies were one of his favourite things; flies were better even than lily pads and ponds.

“I do, yes,” Toad answered. “I like flies most definitely.”

Frog smiled and suggested that he should join her for breakfast then, as he enjoyed ponds and lily pads and flies just as much as she did.

Despite enjoying flies and lily pads and ponds, Mr. Toad was still taken aback by the offer as he had never had breakfast with a Frog before.

“I see,” he replied, thinking about the proposal. They did seem to enjoy the same things. “I think then that I would enjoy that.”

Frog jumped from her lily pad into the water with a splash and soon hopped out of the pond to join him as they set off around the water’s edge in search of breakfast.

As Toad shuffled, Frog hopped alongside. They travelled together, chatting and occasionally stopping to gobble a fly or share a juicy centipede. Now and then, they would pop back in the pond for a quick refreshing dip or to rest on a lily pad.

And so, Frog and Toad spent the morning together, and breakfast became lunch, and lunch became supper.

They talked of frog things and toad things and things that were neither frog nor toad things but were still things that frogs and toads might discuss. And when the end of the day came, Frog slipped back into the pond, and Toad walked off slowly back to his log.

“Same time tomorrow?” Shouted Frog bobbing up and down in the water as she watched him walking away slowly, her heart racing just a little faster.

“Most definitely,” said Toad as the sun began to set, golden rays reflecting like fire on the rippled waters of the pond.

He did so enjoy ponds and lily pads and flies after all…