Global Swarming Honeybees: On Frogs and Leaf Litter

11.18.2009

On Frogs and Leaf Litter

This neat item on frogs' affinity for fallen leaves and the tasty morsels that reside therein just came across the transom, and I thought I'd share.

As it happens, I spent awhile raking on Saturday afternoon (with the aim of adding grist to the compost pile mill). Whilst doing so, I noticed loads of critters in the leaf litter and decided to stop raking and just leave things bee, as it were. So this item is timely, and may inspire others to skip the leaf-raking altogether next time!

Check it out and meditate on the beneficial implications of the proverbial messy yard.

1 comment:

KC said...: nice photo! Definitely tons of worms in the leaves, tho I've yet to see a frog, anywhere. My father most of the time disdained raking in favor of chopping up leaves with the lawn mower, which probably allowed for some composting, if not habitat....; November 20, 2009 at 8:09 PM

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Quotes of Note

"The cynicism that you have is not your real soul."—Yoko Ono
"The country that elected George Bush — sort of — because he seemed like he’d be more fun to have a beer with than Al Gore or John Kerry is really getting its comeuppance."—Gail Collins
"How do you inherit the earth? By being awake."—Joni Mitchell
Causing the right amount of trouble is an art form.”—Judith Coche
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."—Philip K. Dick
"A meddling beekeeper is said to be the bees' worst enemy, and this may be true."—Ormond Aebi, The Art and Adventure of Beekeeping
"For too long we have been locked in an old fashioned, reductionist approach, dealing with bees as if they were mere machines created solely for our benefit, instead of highly evolved, wild creatures, with which we are privileged to work."—Phil Chandler, The Barefoot Beekeeper
"Neither among the bees nor any other animals that have a ray of our intellect, do things happen with the precision our books record. Too many circumstances remain unknown to us."—Maurice Maeterlinck
"In these times, acceleration spoils everything."—Heinz-Klaus Metzger, Musicologist
"Whatever lofty things you might accomplish today, you will do them only because you first ate something that grew out of dirt."—Barbara Kingsolver
"Healthy, happy bees don't need any additives."—Dee A. Lusby
"When the bird and the book disagree, always believe the bird."—Audubon
"There is a certain valid moment for every cloud."—Paul Strand

"For the bee, honey is the ultimate reality. It represents the fulfillment of her life mission, the triumph over her enemies, the continuity of the hive, the justification for working herself to death. Honey is to bees what money in the bank is to people—a measure of prosperity and well-being. But there is nothing abstract or symbolic about honey, as there is about money, which has no intrinsic value. There is more real wealth in a pound of honey, or a load of manure for that matter, than all the currency in the world. We often destroy the world's real wealth to create an illusion of wealth, confusing symbol and substance."—Wm. Longgood, The Queen Must Die